


I Want You

by SoulSurvivor_36



Series: The Lives We Make for Ourselves [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Original Hunt, POV Original Character, Season 9, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:35:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8301989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulSurvivor_36/pseuds/SoulSurvivor_36
Summary: Delilah returns to the bunker but tension is high between Dean and Sam as well as between Dean and Delilah as they all try to deal with his abandoning them and his sudden return.  How can they even begin to get back to the way things were before Gadreel's betrayal?





	1. December

**Author's Note:**

> This picks up right after the end of S09E12: Sharp Teeth and spans the two month gap to Episode 14: Captives.
> 
> As always, I've intergrated my OFC to the existing Supernatural Universe, trying to stick to canon as much as possible, so I apologize if some of the dialogue is borrowed verbatim from the show.
> 
> The title and lyrics are from the Beatles, soooooooo worth a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eu8OZ4eV0k
> 
> Thank you for reading, as always and please don't hesitate to leave a comment.

_I want you_

_I want you so bad_

_I want you_

_I want you so bad_

_It’s driving me mad_

_It’s driving me mad_

“Urgh! Not this again,” Delilah groaned as she looked at the text she had just received from Sam.

_FBI Assistant Director Wilson.  Be firm._

She barely had time to get into character that her phone started ringing, displaying a number she didn’t recognize.  She took a deep breath and tapped the answer button.

“Assistant Director Wilson,” she said into the phone in her no-nonsense, borderline angry voice she had practiced for these calls.

“Howdy, ma’am.  How are you this fine evening?” an unknown voice with a cheerful Texan twang asked her.

“I don’t have time to waste here son, so why don’t you just tell me what the hell this is about?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered hesitatingly.  Oops, might need to tone down the attitude… Damn Sam for making her do this shit. “Just protocol, I’m checking up on a couple of your boys down here in Shamrock… Say they need access to a body.”

“What of it?  If they say they need it, better let them do what they have to do.”

“Yes ma’am, I understand.  What exactly are they looking for? If you don’t mind my asking… we didn’t find anything suspicious… Just an accidental death.”

“This is all need to know, and you don’t have clearance for this information. So I suggest you let my agents have access to whatever they need and stop bothering me with your petty curiosity.  Some of us have important jobs to get back to.”  Why can’t this douche hang up already?

“Of course, my apologies.  I’ll let the department know that they are cleared.”

“Good.”

Delilah tapped the end button and exhaled sharply, tossing her phone onto the little table in front of her.  She accidentally knocked over some of the chess pawns on the board and she swore, rolling her eyes as she bent down to pick them up off the mezzanine floor.  Her phone started ringing again and she looked at it warily, half-tempted to not pick it up.  On the third ring, she grabbed it and checked the ID.  She accepted the call, jammed the phone between her ear and shoulder and started straightening out the marble chess pieces on the board.

“You know, Sam, you used to get this stuff done without the help of an assistant director, or chief, or deputy minister or whatever else bullshit cover you keep setting me up with for these calls.”

Sam laughed into the phone, “Yeah, but we get things done so much quicker when you work your magic.”

“Don’t try to placate me, I hate doing that!  One day, someone’s going to see right through it and throw you and that dipstick brother of yours behind bars and no amount of bullshit will get you out.”

“Do not underestimate the power of bullshit, Delilah.  And besides, you’re getting really good at this.  I don’t know what you said to him, but the deputy practically handed over the key to the evidence lockup.”

“Sam!  Would you quit flirting already?” Delilah heard Dean’s irritated voice in the background and she froze, the breath knocked out of her like a punch to the gut. “We’re wasting daylight here.”

Sam sighed, “Gotta go.  I’ll call you later with an update.”

“Sure thing.  Later,” she managed to choke out before he hung up.

Delilah put the phone down and stared blankly at her tablet resting in her lap.  The seconds slowly moved along and next thing she knew, she had been sitting there, numb, for ten minutes.  She shook herself out of her stupor and laid her tablet on the table, exhaling as she sat back against the padded, leather chair.

“Damnit, Delilah.  You gotta stop doing this to yourself,” she whispered to the empty bunker.

It had been three weeks since Delilah pointed the Blue Devil towards the bunker and came home. She hadn’t planned on taking a detour, driving down i-35, blasting Cream through the Dart’s speakers headed for Lebanon, but when she had seen the junction for the i-90 going west, she had turned the wheel.  She had driven on, no destination in mind, just following the endless interstate, the painted lines scrolling towards her and disappearing beneath the blue hood, towns and cities coming and going.

She had pulled up to a cheap motel in Junction City, South Dakota around supper time and stayed the night.  With the absence of music and road to distract her, her thoughts had inevitably turned to Dean as she lay awake, staring at the ceiling.  She had felt hollow, numb; Dean’s speech to his brother and the lost expression on his face as he tried to verbalize what he kept so carefully locked away inside bouncing around in her head.  She couldn’t forget the pain and turmoil in his eyes when he had looked at her…  She wanted to believe that he wanted her, maybe as much as she wanted him, and she could understand his uncertainty – she was far from confident when it came to deciding what to do about these feelings he stirred in her, but the hurt she had felt from his rejection was burning a hole in her gut, and she would not, could not, go through that again.

Sam wanted her to go back to the bunker with them, and she did want to go, to be his shoulder and ear if he needed it, just as she knew he would be hers, but she needed to figure herself out first, she needed to re-centre herself, away from…  whatever.

She had ended up in Wyoming the next day, turning off i-90 when she saw the signs for the national park.  The park roads had been mostly deserted and she had pulled up on the side as the clear blue waters of a forest lake sparkling in the late November sunshine had come into view.  She had sat on the hood of the car, leaning back against the windshield as she contemplated the beauty of the nature all around her, the breeze rustling the branches of the evergreens.  Her mind had stilled, entranced by the secluded spot.  She had felt so serenely peaceful, she could have stayed there forever it seemed, free of worries, untroubled by her anxieties.  But when night had fallen, she had turned around and gone home.

The first person she had seen was of course the one she had been hoping to avoid.  He had been sitting in one of the chairs around the table in the main hall, his feet propped up on the lit up map, his eyes on his laptop screen.  He had glanced up at her as she had come down the stairs with her bags slung onto one shoulder.  She had taken a deep breath, and averted her eyes, trying to mask the sudden return of the chaos of emotions caused by seeing him.  She had managed a casual “Hey,” that he had returned in his gruff voice, before she had turned towards the kitchen hallway and the safety and seclusion of her room.

Things had been better the next day when she, again, had come face-to-face with Dean, this time though, Sam had been there too.  The brothers had been sitting in the library, discussing casually about something or other, books and papers spread out on the table around them.  With Sam in the room, she had found herself sitting at the table and joining the discussion.  Dean had mostly kept his eyes on the papers and books in front of him while Delilah found her eyes straying towards him too often. He had found a case in Missouri, a potential vampire nest, that he and Sam were going to go check out.

In the three weeks since, the brothers came and went, Sam calling her often to update her on where they were and how the hunt was going.  Sometimes he called to give her the heads up about the local law enforcement contacting her.  Once, he had even called her so she could look up something in the Men of Letters’ library, confirming her suspicions that she had replaced Kevin as the research patsy.  She had been angry for a bit, storming out of the bunker and getting a drink at the local watering hole; like hell was she going to end up trapped in that place.  She had vowed to go on her own hunts too whenever she could.

When Sam was home, they picked up where they had left off before Dean’s return: they watched TV together, did research, sparred, Dean moving from room to room like an unsettled ghost.  He kept to himself mostly, except when he and Sam were doing research.  She had noticed him watching them sometimes, his expression blank.

Sam had been true to his word, and shown her the concrete shooting range, tucked away behind a door where she hadn’t noticed it.  He had proven to be a patient teacher as he showed her the proper ways to handle a gun.  She had turned out to be an adept student too, quickly growing comfortable with the new weapon.  He had explained the various circumstances when firearms could come in handy and shown her the various types of specialty bullets that could be used and how to make them.  She had already known about the rock salt shells they used in shotguns to temporarily dissipate ghosts, but there were also wrought iron bullets for their pistols that could do the same thing and silver bullets for werewolves and shape shifters and basically any creature sensitive to the metal, bullets with devil’s traps carved into them to immobilize demons, even special hollow points filled with poppy extract that they had used when the Wicked Witch of the West had run around the bunker…  Yes, that one, as in Oz.

Now, sitting in her favourite spot on the mezzanine, Delilah looked down at the empty room below her, the buzz of the various electronic instruments reaching her ears in the absence of the other residents.  She glanced down at the world table below her and turned away with a sigh.  She picked up her tablet again and read over her notes that she had been working on before Sam’s disruption.  They were her summary of a hunt she and Sam had gone on the previous week: a haunting in Nebraska that had finished in a salt and burn, though the ghost had given them a merry chase, she still had a bruise in her shoulder from the rock salt shotgun she had fired at it.  Sam had told her afterwards that she had been holding it too tightly and should relax into the recoil… Easier said than done when a scary as fuck spirit is charging right at you.

Delilah put down her tablet again, resting it, and her hands, in her lap as she looked around at the blue-green light flooding the room through the glass wall separating the computer room from the main hall.  As she watched, the lights around her dimmed, switching to the nighttime lighting automatically and casting the place in shadow.  She could just walk over to the switch and turn them back on manually, but what was the point?  She may as well go to bed.

~

Delilah closed another thick dusty book full of useless information and tossed it onto the library table in front of her.  Sam glanced up and gave her his questioning look from behind his brown locks.  She sighed and gestured hopelessly at the thing just beyond her bent knees, bare feet curled around the edge of the chair.  “Another book filled with useless crap. The Men of Letters sure spent a lot of time looking into some of the most random shit.  That one was like reading a philosophical dissertation on the gender of angels.”

Sam smiled and chuckled, closing his own book, “And?  Do angels have genders?”

Delilah pursed her lips and scowled at him, annoyed.  “I don’t think this guy ever even met an angel.  Seriously, just a bunch of useless drivel about vessels and something like celestial essence and transcendence… Whatever.  These guys were crackpots.”

“Sounds like someone needs a movie night,” Sam responded with a grin.

“Bitch, please.  You know you want to take a break as much as I do.”

“Yeah, you got me,” he said, humouring her, “What d’you feel like?”

“Anything.  Your pick.  I’ll go dig up some popcorn and gummies,” she said jumping over the armrest of her chair and heading out towards the kitchen.

She pulled up short as she put her foot down on the first step and her stomach lurched into her feet.  She caught herself on the doorframe, just managing to not fall on her face as Dean looked up from his spot at the table, then casually looked back down at his computer.  She wanted to run away, or hide; her heart hammering in her chest, like it did whenever she was surprised by him.  Calm the fuck down Delilah, you promised you wouldn’t do this to yourself anymore.  She forced herself to slowly straighten up and take the last step down into the kitchen.

“Hey,” she threw out casually as she headed for the metal shelving beside the ancient industrial sized fridge/freezer.  Dean looked up again, rubbing his eyes and passing his hand on his face before pushing back from the table.

“Hey,” he replied, his rough voice setting things in motion deep inside her.

She swallowed hard, turning away from him as she continued to speak, her voice blessedly devoid of the tremors she felt inside, “Research?”

“Mmm hmm,” he answered, stretching his spine.

She opened the green bread box and pulled out the bag of gummy bears she had hidden there after her last trip to the grocery store.  She had quickly discovered that both brothers had a sweet tooth for the things, so now when she bought some, she stashed them away in unlikely places… Let them hunt for their gluttony!

“Gadreel?” She turned around, heading for the other metal shelves where they kept the stovetop popcorn, but her stomach lurched again as she realized how close she would have to get to the plaid wearing hunter to get to it.  She didn’t think she could keep up the small talk for as long as it took to make the popcorn either.  Come on Dee… you can do this.

He leaned forward on the table again, moving his finger around on the touch pad, keeping his eyes on the screen, “Yeah.”

She stared at him, his jaw covered in the longer scruff he’d been sporting since his return, fatigue all over his face and in his body language.  She knew he’d been having a hard time sleeping: she often saw him wandering around in the bunker at night while she sat in her mezzanine seat, unable to sleep herself.

She swallowed hard and took one step towards him, the popcorn on the shelf her destination, but then did a ninety-degree pivot back towards the door when he shifted to pick up his glass of whiskey.

She left the room without another word, nor a backward glance, and instantly started feeling stupid about her behaviour.  Life at the bunker was never going to shift back to normal if she couldn’t get a handle on this.  Sam certainly managed to deal with his issues, his interactions with Dean so natural: they never fought, they hardly even raised their voices at each other… which, come to think of it, was, maybe, a bit odd.

Delilah headed down Sam’s hallway, the sole occupant of this side of the bunker now.  His door was ajar and she pushed it open with her foot, opening the bag of gummies at the same time.  She walked over to the bed and plopped herself down next to him, sitting against the headboard.  He looked at her quizzically, “No popcorn?”

“We’re out,” Delilah responded, holding out the bag of candies so he could grab a few.  He raised an eyebrow, but let it go as he hit play on the remote, starting the movie.  She frowned as her ears registered the harsh, foreign dialogue and she saw subtitles appear at the bottom of the screen.  Of course, he would pick a foreign film, that’s what you get when you let Sam pick the movie.  She scooted down a bit to lean more comfortably, settling in to watch.

Two hours later, Delilah was still frowning at the screen, trying to understand the puzzling ending to the film.

“I’m confused…” she said, glaring at the credits scrolling, “I still don’t know who I was supposed to root for.  Did anybody come out a winner in this?”

Sam laughed. “Shades of grey, Delilah.  Not everything is clear cut.”

“Got enough of that bullshit in real life, don’t need my escapism to confuse me too.”

Sam didn’t respond, just looked at her.  She could see him out of the corner of her eye, looking pensive.

“How you doing?” he asked her, after a moment.  She turned to look at him, tilting her head to the side.

“I’m fine, Sam,” she answered automatically, “How’re you?”

He smiled and looked away, “No seriously.  You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said half-heartedly, and she didn’t believe herself either, “You know, it sucks, but…  can’t do anything about it, so.  Whatever.”

“I’m sorry if it’s awkward.  I didn’t mean to do that to you.”

“No.  It’s fine.  Really.”  She paused, then added playfully, “Besides, things are looking up.”

Sam turned to face her, eyebrows raised, “Oh?  What? Did he pull his head out of his ass?”

“What?” She paused, then realization dawned on her and she quickly shut him down, “No! Not… No.  I mean I have a date.  Maybe.  I haven’t said yes.”

“A date, date?” he asked, Delilah nodding at her feet, a faint blush creeping on her face.  Sam smiled, “Who’s the mystery man then?” He snatched the bag of gummies out of her hands and fished around for a red one.

“Just some guy from the gym.  Cam.”  Delilah reached to retake the bag, but Sam moved it away.  She threw an annoyed look his way and stretched further to grab it, but he pulled it away again, getting another gummy bear for himself.  “Seriously, Sam?” she exclaimed as he tossed the candy into his mouth and grinned.

She narrowed her eyes at him and pounced, throwing one knee over one of his legs and kneeling up, one hand resting on his shoulder for stability as she reached for the bag of candy that he was keeping away from her with his long arm.  He was laughing as she cried out for him to relinquish the gummy bears while trying to close the impossible distance to the bag.  She almost had it: her hips pressed against his torso, one arm bearing down on his tree limb like arm slowly forcing it to bend and reaching with her other arm, when she heard an awkward cough behind her, at the door.  She turned her head sharply, losing her already precarious balance and falling against Sam’s chest.  She froze and felt her cheeks heat up as she saw Dean standing in the open doorway, staring at them, a perfect mask of numb neutrality on his face.  She straightened up quickly again, but he had already turned around and walked away.

Delilah let herself fall back into her sitting position against the headboard, and stared ahead morosely.  The gummy bears appeared in her line of sight, held out in Sam’s hand for her to take them.  She fished into the bag and pulled out a green one, popping it into her mouth and chewing slowly, lost in her thoughts.

“I think you should go,” Sam said to her.  She turned her head to look at him, stunned that he would turn her away now.  “On that date, I mean.  With gym guy.”

“Cam,” she corrected, relieved she had misunderstood.

“Whatever his name is, it’s unimportant anyways.” He waved it off.

“Oh! Nice, Sam.  Really classy there.  Have you been taking lessons from your brother?”

Sam rolled his eyes before answering, “I’m being serious.  Go and have some fun.  Maybe a change of scenery will do you good.”

“Pffft!” she scoffed at him, “And when’s the last time, you went out and ‘changed the scenery’?”

“How is that important?  Look, really, go out with him.  It’ll be good.”

“Fine.  I’ll go.  No guarantees I’ll enjoy it, though.”

Sam raised his arms in mock surrender, and Delilah announced her intentions to go to bed.  He wished her goodnight and she left his room, making her way down the back corridor to her own room.  There was light coming from the grill in the bottom of Dean’s door as she walked by and she grew sad, thinking about him on his own.

An image of her kneeling on his bed, her legs on either side of his as she bent down to kiss him passionately, popped into her head and she touched her fingers to her tingling lips as she recalled the feel of him back at Reverend Jim’s house the morning after their fight with the Maw of Fenris.  She felt a throb low in her abdomen, but it quickly died away as she also remembered his abrupt rejection and her humiliation from having thrown herself at him and been pushed away.

She moved on down the hall a few feet and pushed open her door, seeking refuge from her memories and lustful thoughts in the darkness and warmth of her bed.  Maybe she did need a change of scenery, someone to take her mind off what she could not have.

 ~

Delilah bent low over the pool table and lined up her shot.  A tall, broad shouldered man was just barely visible out of the corner of her eye, leaning up against the column, his light brown eyes watching her play.  Cam’s long dirty blond hair was falling in tight waves, sweeping past his shoulders.  She was glad he had dispensed with the atrocious man bun he usually sported at the gym.  They had met up, that night, at the only bar in town, where she often came to pass the time, and she had been pleasantly surprised seeing him dressed in a dark green shirt that looked tailor made to accentuate his broad, muscular shoulders and arms and his trim waist. As the cue ball clicked against the nine ball sending it into the middle pocket, Delilah idly wondered if his carved physique would feel as hard as it looked.

She straightened up, to move around the table for her next shot, glancing again at the blinking Christmas lights strewn all around the bar.  It was surprisingly busy for a Tuesday night, the bartender handing out beer after beer and nodding her way when she waved for another drink.  Then again, other than the few regulars scattered around the place, the demographic of the patrons made her think of college students, home for the holidays… And where else would they go in this one bar town?  She felt even more like an outsider when Cam was greeted enthusiastically by a few of them.  He introduced her, like a perfect gentleman, as he chatted comfortably with them when they wandered in through the door and passed the pool table, and she wondered just how old her date was.

“Here you go Dee.  I’ll add it to your tab,” the bartender said as he left her another whiskey on the small table close by and removed the empty glasses and beer bottles.

“Thanks Keith,” she said as she bent low over the table sighting down the cue and measuring angles in her head.

She chuckled briefly on the inside at the fact that although her date seemed to know every new face through the door, she was the one on first name basis with the bartender.  She wondered what Cam thought about that, as he stood across the pool table from her, smiling down at her, while she calculated her shot.  She glanced at him again, and her mind idly wondered what his lips felt like; if they would be soft or hard when they finally did kiss.

She shifted over to where the cue ball had stopped, perfectly lined up for her next shot, and her stomach twisted uncomfortably.  She hit the cue ball wrong and sank one of Cam’s solids instead.

“Well that was generous of you, I was wondering if I’d ever get to play.”

He smiled warmly as he walked up to the side of the pool table where the cue ball had come to a full stop.  She moved over to where her drink was and sipped at the amber liquid as the man’s arms bulged almost indecently.  He sank two shots before a miscalculation sent his cue ball into a corner pocket.  He bent his head down as he leaned his arms against the table, laughing at his own clumsiness.  He was so charmingly boyish.  She couldn’t help but think that he was as near to perfect as he could get, and handsome to boot.  Well, Sam did say that she should have fun...  She sipped her whiskey again and put it down on the table, picking up her cue and walking over to where he was standing.  She stood close to him, keeping eye contact as she slowly leaned around him, reaching into the pocket for the cue ball.  She laid it down on the table mat, placing it carefully.  She took another step, forcing him to back up as she made her way around to the table end.  She took the cue in both her hands, and turned to lean down over the table again, nudging him gently with her hip.  She certainly wasn’t being particularly subtle, but he continued to behave like a gentleman, keeping a respectful distance as she lined up the cue and sent the eight ball flying into the corner pocket with a quick, explosive prod, winning the game.

She placed the cue stick on the table as she straightened back up and turned to lean against the edge.

“Audaces fortuna iuvat,” she whispered to herself, crooking her finger at him to come closer.

He took the two steps that separated them, still mindful of her space, even as she reached up to grab his shirt lapels, pulling him down towards her.  As the man’s lips connected to hers and she closed her eyes, she wondered why dark lash-lined, green eyes suddenly popped into her head.  The blond man deepened the kiss, putting his hands on her hips and moving closer to her, and she gave in to the feel of his lips: thinner than the soft, plump, passionate ones that haunted her dreams.  She tried to banish the intruder from her thoughts as she stretched up more and ran her hands down the man’s broad, chiseled chest.  She opened her mouth and he slipped in his tongue, Delilah tasting the beer he had been drinking all night.

She felt a cold draft coming in from the door, and opened her eyes out of reflex.  Her brain registered the blue-coated, short-haired, hunter standing there, staring in her direction.  Their eyes connected and Delilah felt like a bolt of electricity had gone right through her and she broke off the kiss, startled.  The next moment, the man in the door was blocked from her view as her date straightened up, apparently oblivious to her distraction.

“Mmmm,” he rumbled, “I’ve been thinking about doing that for a while.”

He brought up his hand, and ran the tips of his fingers through her long hair.  She turned her head, catching Dean in her sight again as he moved towards an empty stool at the bar.  Cam started to lean down towards her again, and she looked right at him and pushed back on his chest.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said to him, her fight-or-flight kicking in and screaming at her to get far, far away.

A look of surprise crept onto his face, but he recovered quickly, grabbing their coats from where they were hanging on the back of a chair and holding hers open so she could slip her arms inside.  It was her turn to be surprised by the gallant gesture, and she found herself slipping one of her hands in his as they moved towards the door.

He opened the door and held it as she stepped through the doorway, involuntarily glancing back at the form slouched over the bar, sipping out of a glass.  His side glance connected with hers again as she pulled her long hair out of her coat and then walked out.  Cam took her hand again and pulled her right up to a black sedan with chrome detailing glimmering faintly in the parking lot’s dim lighting.  He opened the passenger door for her.  Her mind was racing with a thousand thoughts as she was irritatingly drawn back to the man inside the bar.

Delilah tried, once again to put him out of her mind as she moved up to Cam and pressed up against him.  His lips came down on hers again, more demanding than before and Delilah couldn’t help but think that this would’ve been exactly how she liked it, half a year ago, before…

She pulled away again, forcefully breaking the kiss and pushing hard against him as her brain threw erotic memories at her of her time with Dean.  She was breathing too quickly, her breath going up in clouds around them in the cold air, trying to compensate for her wild heartbeat.  Cam laid his hands on hers gently.

“What’s wrong, Delilah?” he asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

She looked at him, confused and angry; why couldn’t she fall for this man, being so kind and patient?  Why was she still thinking about the one who had rejected her?  He didn’t want her, so why did she still want him so badly?  Why couldn’t she forget him and move on?

“I’m so sorry, Cameron.” Tears welled up in her eyes and a warm trail formed down her cheek and then grew colder.

“Hey, it’s ok.  What’s wrong?” he asked her softly, brushing his thumb on her cheek as he cupped her face, catching another falling tear.

“I’m sorry, I never should have come out tonight.” She took a step back from him and wiped the remaining tears from her eyes, careful not to smear her makeup. “It wasn’t fair to you.”

He dropped his arms to his side, a look of disappointment on his face as he seemed to understand what she was saying.  “Look, you’re a really good guy, Cam…”

He cut her off by raising one of his hands, staring at the ground.  Then he looked up right at her, “You can save the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech, ok?”  He gave her a sad smile as he went on. “I get it.  You’re a great girl, and I had fun tonight, but it just didn’t click.  You were a million miles away from the start, so I’ll just assume it wasn’t all about me and move on.”

He took a step towards her, cupped her stunned face in his hands, kissed her gently on the lips and then the forehead and stepped away again.

“Goodnight, Delilah.  I’ll see you around, I suppose.”

He moved to the other side of the car and got into the driver’s seat and drove away, leaving her feeling both amazed and like the biggest idiot in the world.  If she couldn’t fall for a man as perfect as him, what the hell was she supposed to do?  She watched his tail lights until they had disappeared in the distance, in the cold dark night, and then she tucked her hands in her coat pockets and turned her feet north, heading back to the bunker on foot.

⭐


	2. January

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter references S09E13 "The Purge"
> 
> I give a lot of information about the Mark of Cain in this chapter. Some of it is canon and some of it is from various sources from my own research on the internet (Living the dream *eye roll*)

Delilah wandered into the kitchen through the side door, dressed in her cotton pyjama pants, flip flops, tank top and a long cotton knit cardigan she had been wearing like a bathrobe around the concrete bunker in the past few days; the damp cold making its way through the walls.  Dean was sitting at the kitchen table again, slouched over, staring at his computer screen, wearing the same clothes he had been wearing the night before: a thick, dark blue corduroy shirt over a long sleeved grey Henley.  Delilah noticed the near-empty bottle of whiskey and half-eaten pizza crusts on the table surrounded by open books and scattered notes.  His eyes barely flicked her way, the only sign that he had noticed her presence as she moved towards the fridge to get some milk.

Ever since the week before, when she had gone on her wildly unsuccessful date with Cam, she had felt nothing but cold indifference coming from Dean, serving only to make her feel even more like the idiot she was.  This morning was no different, and she forced herself to move around the kitchen, pretending he wasn’t there.

Sam came in, a moment later, moving down the steps and making a beeline for the coffee bar, glancing at his brother and smiling at Delilah.

“Hey,” he said, Dean answering in a groggy voice; his own “Hey,” muffled by his hand holding up his head.

Sam looked around at the coffee bar, not finding what he was looking for, then turned to look up to where she was putting the milk down on the stainless steel counter.  He took a good look at his brother and frowned, glancing back at Delilah who just shrugged and grabbed two coffee cups off the shelf over the sink, holding them out to Sam.  He walked towards her, addressing his brother, “You go to bed last night?”

“What?” Dean answered, confused, rubbing his puffy eyes then crossing his arms. “Uh, no.” He cleared the grog from his throat and went on. “No, _Rudy_ was on, and then, uh…” He picked up his nearly empty glass of whiskey, looking at the amber contents, “ _Unforgiven_ , and then I was too jacked to sleep... So, research.” He took a sip of his whiskey, pursing his lips as Sam headed back to the coffee maker with the coffee cups.

“Gadreel?” asked Sam, turning back towards Dean as he poured.

“And Metatron, and the Mark of Cain, and… Crickets.”

Delilah frowned, not aware that they had a new research topic.

“Wait,” she said, “The Mark of what?”

“The Mark of Cain,” Sam repeated as he pulled a bowl out of the coffee bar and put it down on the table, along with the two cups of coffee.

Delilah grabbed the milk and brought it over to him and he gave her one of the cups.

“What’s the Mark of Cain?” she asked him as she picked up the sugar container and poured her usual amount into her coffee and stirred.  She was standing at the end of the table beside Dean, and Sam sat down on the stool across from his brother.  Dean turned his head away, like he was sickened by her… or her sugar habits, maybe.  She took a sip of the sweet, hot liquid and focused on Sam.

“It’s the mark given to Cain by Lucifer after he killed his brother Abel.  Bible says that whoever harms Cain would have to answer to God’s vengeance and would have the damage come back to them sevenfold.”

Delilah raised her eyebrows, more bible stuff.  “Ok, what does that have to do with us?  Is this information that will help us find Metatron?”

“It’s a weapon,” Dean said, taking another swig of his whiskey, “One that’ll kill Metatron and Abaddon, and finish this fucking bullshit, once and for all.”

How the man could be disgusted by her coffee, when he was drinking hard liquor at seven in the morning was beyond her.  She stared at him for a long minute, taking in how terrible he looked and feeling concerned.  Dean was not doing too well.

“So, how do we find this Mark of Cain?”

He looked up at her, his green eyes clear and penetrating as ever as he grabbed his rolled up shirt sleeve and yanked it up revealing an angry, red welt on his right arm like a backwards F.  That had definitely not been there the last time they had been together.  She put down her cup quickly and grabbed his arm without thinking.  Dean sat back, startled, but didn’t pull away from her.  She looked at the mark closely, smoothing her thumb carefully over the raised surface, tracing it, his skin warm under her fingertips.  She looked up at him again, ignoring the whiff of alcohol reaching her nose. “What happened?  How did you get this?”

“Cain gave it to me, so I could take out Abaddon.  It’s the only way to kill a Knight of Hell,” he said, half stunned.

“We’ve got Crowley searching for the First Blade: the weapon Cain used to kill Abel. Together, blade and mark can destroy anything,” Sam added, from his seat behind her.

She continued to look at Dean, neither of them wavering, “When did you get this?” she asked him, softly.

Something like a camera shutter clicked behind his eyes, and he was back to being cold as he yanked his arm away from her and pushed his sleeve back down, looking away.  “After we rescued Sam,” he said.

Delilah reeled, still keeping her eyes locked on him, even if he had turned away. “But, that’s over a month ago! How did I not know about this?”

He turned and narrowed his eyes at her. “Maybe if you weren’t off screwing the locals every other night.  Any more questions I can answer for you, Delilah?” he spat at her, his cold voice cutting through her like a knife.

“Dean!” Sam yelled at him.

She took a step away from the table, hurt.  She stood in the kitchen, folding her arms around her middle, unsure what to do. An awkward silence grew between them as the minutes ticked by.  Dean folded his arms and looked down at his screen again.

“I did find us a case though,” Dean clearly directing that statement to his brother, dismissing Delilah entirely.

She moved over to the kitchen steps and sat down, not wanting to sit at the same table as him, but not wanting to miss anything either.  She kept her arms folded, holding her sweater closed, feeling cold.  Sam poured himself some cornflakes. “Yeah?” he said, not managing to completely mask his angry tone.

“Yeah, was a… strange death in Stillwater, Minnesota,” he said clicking on something on his computer. “A competitive eater died after a hot-dog eating contest.”

Sam frowned at him, taking a spoonful of cereal in his mouth, “So what?  Death by tube steak?”

Dean looked at him, “If only.  He got attacked in his car, but, uh, get this… he shrunk from 300lbs to 90lbs.”

“Witchcraft?” Sam asked.

“Or a heavy-duty laxative.  You game?”

“Yeah,” Sam answered, after he glanced at Delilah.

She didn’t feel the need to say anything, assuming her presence would not be welcome on this trip.

“Good,” Dean said, standing up, “Looks like it’s a whore’s bath for me. I’ll be ready in five.”

He looked right at her when he said it, making her stomach churn.  She scooted over to the edge of the step as Dean headed her way to go out the door.  She noticed Sam glance towards her and his face settled into a scowl.  He glared at his brother’s back as he called out to him.

“You sure you’re ok, Dean?”

The older brother stopped on the step and turned back towards him, standing right beside Delilah.  She couldn’t see his face, but she could clearly see Sam: something was up.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Dean asked.

“‘Cause, I dunno, you…” Sam paused, then looked him in the eye, “This isn’t about what I said the other day, is it?”

Delilah breathed in sharply, seriously Sam?  You decide to bring that up… now?  She shook her head at him, dumbfounded, but Sam ignored her, keeping eye contact with Dean.

There was a pause before he responded, “Oh, about that we’re not supposed to be brothers?  No, don’t flatter yourself.  I don’t break that easy.”

“Oh good,” Sam said peevishly, “‘Cause I was just being honest.”

“Oh yeah, no!” he said, anger in his voice as he turned away and continued out into the hallway, “I got that loud and clear.”

Sam glanced down at her, his lips pursed, and then turned back to his bowl of cereal, turning Dean’s computer around so he could read the article on the death in Stillwater.  She got up from the step and moved to sit beside him at the table, facing his profile.

“Great, Sam.  Do you feel better now?” He kept on reading the article, chewing on his cornflakes.  “Why would you go and rile him up like that?”

He looked down at his cereal, “I don’t like the shit he says to you.”

Delilah shook her head at him, “Sam, I can fight my own battles.  There’s no need to go make things worse between you two.  You’re family, I’m just a squatter here,” she said, laughing half-heartedly.

“You’re family to me,” he said, looking her straight in the eye, no trace of comedy in his face.

Delilah was taken aback.  She had no idea he cared so much.  Family was one of the most important things to the Winchesters, she had no idea how to respond.  Sam looked down, his hair falling forward in his face.  She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, laying her head on his shoulder.  He drew his arm back and wrapped it around her, returning her affectionate hug and warming her up to her core with well being.

He pulled away shortly after, “I better go get ready, before he leaves me behind.  You gonna be ok on your own?”

Delilah looked up at him as he stood up from the table, grabbing his bowl and now empty coffee cup.  She scoffed at his silly question, “Please, Sam.  The way you two run off every other day, I’m alone here more than anything.” She watched him put his dishes in the sink and look around for something, she shook her head at his complete lack of home skills.  “Just leave it, Sam.  I’ll take care of it.”

He turned around, and smiled at her and she shook her head at the goofball.  She stood up and slapped his back as he walked by her. “Get out of here, you twit.”

“I’ll see you in a couple days… Don’t go do anything crazy.”

“Oh! Good thing you said that, I had just been thinking that Dean’s room needed redecorating… with a paintball gun.  But now I guess I won’t do that.”

Sam burst out laughing and she chuckled too, as he left the room.  She set about picking up after the boys, putting Dean’s whiskey away and throwing out his pizza crusts.  She glanced down at his notes: possible sightings of Metatron, or Gadreel, various coordinates to God knows where, doodles of the Mark of Cain and excerpts from the bible, transcribed and annotated as Dean had tried to parse sensationalism from useful fact.  She piled his papers neatly and stacked the books, turning off his computer as well.

By the time she turned to the sink to clean the dishes, he had come back into the kitchen with his duffle bag slung over his shoulder and a fresh set of clothes on his back.  He grabbed the computer and stuffed it into his bag, then zipped it closed.  Delilah watched him leaving without a word.  He seemed to hesitate on the step though; keeping his back turned, but pausing.  Delilah stilled, expectant and a little apprehensive, waiting to see what he had to say.  Finally, he continued up towards the main hall without a word, leaving her alone to brood over his behaviour.

They could not go on like this.  Something would have to happen soon, or she would go mad.

 ~

After they had left, and she had showered and dressed, Delilah settled herself at the far table in the library with Dean’s notes on the Mark of Cain.  There wasn’t much to add to what Sam had already said.  The mark was given to Cain after he killed his brother Abel.  Dean had some things written down that went against what she knew of the story.  In the bible God was the one who put the mark on Cain, but according to Dean’s notes, it was really Lucifer.  Cain became the first Knight of Hell and also created the others, including Abaddon.  From Dean’s scribbles in the margins, she understood that he got this information from Cain himself.

Delilah sat back in the chair and drew her feet up under her, pulling her tablet into her lap.  She spent the next several hours reading through scriptures for mentions of Cain and the Mark and the Knights of Hell, reading the relevant passages that had been identified online.  She also read through different versions of the Old Testament, discovering the story in Christianity, Judaism and Islam.  None of them, however, mentioned the involvement of Lucifer in the giving of the Mark.  She did come across the theory that Cain was only step-brother to Abel, having been the result of Lucifer’s union with Eve in the garden.  She noted it down for further research.

The day wore on and she continued her search into the evening, breaking only to forage for food.  She decided to start searching through the Men of Letters’ archive for mentions of the mark.  Her mind started straying as she cross referenced topics and books and found no mention of the mark beyond what the sacred texts said.  How was it possible that it had, so far, gone entirely unnoticed by these scholars?  Especially if it did hold the power suggested by Cain…  Had Cain ever given the mark to others before?  If he had, she was sure there would have been more mention of it.  And if Dean was the first to receive the mark from Cain… The First Son…  Why was he chosen?  Why give the mark now?

Delilah’s phone started ringing and she gingerly stood up from where she had been sitting on the floor, hunting for a book on one of the bottom shelves.  She wiped her hands on her jeans and reached for her cell, sitting on the table.  It was Sam.

“Hey Sam,” Delilah said into the receiver, holding the phone to her ear.  “How’s the search for the miracle weight loss cure going?”

“Hey!  Well, we found a lead… Maybe,” he answered, his fingers audibly clicking away on his computer.

“What did you find?” she asked him, dropping into one of the leather chairs.

“A putsi bag.”

Delilah frowned, staring at nothing in particular.  “Are you dealing with the Romani?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“The Romani have a rich supernatural history.  I came across some of their lore when I was classifying witchcraft a few months back.” Another lifetime ago it seems, she thought to herself.

“Yeah, good one.  Our prime suspect’s Romanichal.  I found the putsi bag at her place.”

“What’s her link to the victim?”

“She’s married to the vic’s long time rival in, get this… the competitive eating circuit.”

Delilah blinked at the phone. “I’m sorry, what?  That’s your angle, seriously?”

Sam started laughing, “Honest to God!  That’s the big thing around here.”

“Right!  Sounds fascinating… But really, we’re shut ins who kill monsters and watch Netflix…  who are we to judge?” Sam chuckled and she faintly heard grumbling in the background.  She was somewhat glad she hadn’t heard Dean’s comment, something told her it wasn’t nice.  She went on, “What did the local law enforcement have to say?”

“Not much, they’re pretty stumped.  The coroner’s report states cardiac arrest as the cause of death, but they really don’t know.  There was massive damage to most of the organs.”

“Huh. Did the victim really lose over 200lbs in the space of minutes?  Was the article exaggerating?”

“No, it wasn’t.  The body looked like a rubber suit, tissues sucked right out.”

Delilah lapsed into silence.  She heard Sam still working on his computer and then a distant knock followed by the sound of abrupt movement.  “I gotta go, there’s someone here.  I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Alright, be safe.”

She tapped the end button and went back to her search, not finding anything new and turning in around one in the morning, the story of Cain and Abel swimming in her head.

 ~

_Delilah ran through a field of wheat.  “Sam!” her voice echoed around her trapped in a bubble: hollow and metallic.  She came to a sudden stop on the edge of a steep cliff, water crashing far below against the rocks in a thunderous clap.  She looked around her in a panic.  “Sam!” she called out again.  Behind her the wheat withered and turned to ash, a sudden breeze picking it up and churning it all around her, the air thick and hard to breathe.  A man was kneeling in the distance.  Her heart pounded in her chest as she approached him.  She lay her hand on his broad shoulder, and he turned his tortured green eyes on her, tears silently spilling over his cheeks.  “Dean.  Where’s Sam?”  she asked him and his eyes turned to anger.  “Why should I know?  I don’t keep track of everything he does.”  The ground around her started to spin as she looked down at his blood stained hands.  A pool of deep red was spreading quickly, covering where the ash had settled and in the middle of it lay Sam, eyes glazed over, unseeing._

Delilah sat up with a gasp, her head pounding as her heart pumped too fast.  She brought her hands to her face and rubbed the dream away, pressing into her forehead then staring blindly ahead into the pitch black room.  She let herself fall back onto the pillow and let out an exasperated sigh.  Why was it that she could always count on her dreams to throw the things she was avoiding right in her face?  Not that she thought Dean would kill Sam, but the parallel between Cain’s story and Dean’s wasn’t hard to see.

Her phone started ringing and she looked around, confused, as she grabbed it off the little dresser by her bed.  The display said it was Sam.  It also said it was just before six a.m.

“Someone better be dead if you’re calling me at way-too-fucking-early o’clock,” she groaned into the receiver, throwing her arm over her eyes, the headache back with a vengeance.

“Second victim was found this morning at the local gym.  Same M.O.” Sam answered, no trace of humour in his voice.

“Well, fuck.  Now I feel like shit.”

She threw off the covers and sat up on the side of the bed, reaching over to the lamp and turning it on, casting a warm yellow glow around her generally sterile looking room.

“Our motive is out the window too,” he added. She heard a car horn in the distance and the soft rustle of wind.  Sam was on the move.

“New victim not related to the Romanichal?”

“No, nothing links the two victims at all, except they both had extra pounds before they died.”

“Ok.  If you say the Romani wasn’t involved, are you still leaning towards witchcraft?”

“I dunno.  We found a weird mark on the victim’s stomach.  Looks like it could be a suction mark, maybe?”

“What?  Like the changelings?” she asked, worried that children might be getting hurt again.

“Similar, but there are no kids involved in this in any way.  This might be a new one for us.”

“Did the first victim have a similar mark?”

“Not sure, I’m headed to the morgue right now to check it out.”

“What’s Dean doing?”

Sam coughed, “He’s interviewing the staff from the gym.”  Delilah nodded to herself, of course he is, probably chatting up a cute trainer.  “Hey,” he started, sounding awkward, “Am I weird around girls?”

Delilah let out a surprised chuckle. “What?  Where the hell did that come from?”

“Never mind,” he said quickly, “Just something Dean said.  It’s stupid.”

She snorted. “Everything your brother says these days is stupid.  He probably just said that so he could talk to the pretty girl himself.  Dean is Dean after all.”  Sam didn’t respond, leaving Delilah to listen to his even breathing as he made his way to the morgue on foot.  “Hey Sam, did you think to snap a picture of that weird mark?”

“Yeah.  You want it?”

“Was thinking I could look some stuff up around here.  You know, actually do something useful, while you two goofballs are running around.”

“Alright, I’ll send it along.  Thanks.”

“No problem.  I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

She tapped the end button and got up with a groan.  Another long day sitting around doing research.  Well, hopefully this research would yield results.

 ~

Delilah reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

“Hey, any new leads?” she asked as she turned a page, scanning the text for keywords related to fat, or suction, or red welts.  She was sitting at the middle table in the library, a coffee beside her.

“Yeah, turns out the trainer Dean talked to had a suction mark just like the two victims.  We tracked it back to this posh Spa: Canyon Valley.”

“So, are you guys heading there now?”

“Already there.  We got hired so we could snoop around.”

“Janitorial staff?” Delilah mused aloud, picturing them pushing a cleaning trolley like in a heist movie.

“Actually, I’m a personal trainer.  I’m giving an Ashtanga yoga class in a few minutes.”

Delilah choked and started laughing, nearly dropping her phone.

“Are you on the phone with her again?  Goddamn Sammy, cut the fucking chord already,” Dean cut in, in the background.  “Nice shorts by the way.”

“Oh God, tell me Dean is in shorts too.” She snorted again, the visuals swimming in her head just too awesome.

“Better, just a sec.” Sam’s voice sounded further away as he said, “Hey Jerk.”  She heard the shutter click and then Dean let out a yell.  There was a mad scramble and she could hear scuffling sounds.  What the hell were they doing?

A strangely accented male voice called out in the distance, “Hey, new guy.  Quit flirtin’ with the trainer and keep scoopin’, huh?”

“I gotta go teach my class anyhow,” Sam said, his voice getting closer to the receiver again.

Delilah couldn’t hear Dean’s reply.  To her, Sam said, “Any luck with the research?”

“No, nothing yet.  What was all that about?”

Sam chuckled, “I’ll send you the picture.  Call me if you find anything.”

“Alright, enjoy your yoga, remember to keep your core tight.”

“Yeah, ha ha.  Bye.”

Delilah hung up, still laughing.  The shit those guys get into.  Her phone tinged and she looked down at the new text message.  She held her sides laughing, bent over, her forehead on the smooth table, as the image of Dean looking up at the camera confused, wearing a hairnet and holding a serving spoon became clear.  She was definitely going to keep that one for a rainy day.  To Sam she replied: _You’re right! Much better than shorts! Haha._

She went back to her book, turning another page and scanning.  It wasn’t long after, that Delilah turned yet another page and the words _fat sucker_ caught her attention.  The accompanying picture wasn’t too pretty either.  She dragged the book forward and scooted up to the edge of her chair, leaning her arms on the table.  She was reaching for her tablet to take notes in her journal when her phone started ringing again.  She glanced down to where she had left it on the table and frowned, slightly confused.  She picked it up, tapping the answer button.

“Dean?”

“Sammy!” Dean’s voice sounded off, like he was holding the phone too far.

Delilah sighed. “No Dean, it’s Delilah.  You okay?  You sound kinda weird.”

“Need your help.” His voice was definitely slurred, and it sounded like forming words needed big effort.  Something was wrong

“Where are you?” she asked him, panic making her blood pump.  Where was Sam?  Silence stretched on and she got worried. “Dean!” she called into the phone.

Suddenly, he called out, “Sweet potatehs!” but before she could ask him anything else, she heard a thud and the phone disconnected.

“Shit!” she exclaimed.  She scrambled for her contacts and tapped Sam.  She was relieved when he answered on the first ring.

“Sam!”

“I gotta get this,” she heard him say then, “Yeah?” and softer again, “Have a good one.”

“Sam damnit!  Will you listen?”

“Delilah, what’s wrong?”

“You need to find Dean,” she said urgently, “There’s something wrong.  I think he’s in trouble.”

“Where is he?” he asked, his own tone becoming more urgent.

“I don’t know!  I tried to ask him, but all he said was sweet potatoes.”

“Shit.  Okay, wait.  He must still be in the kitchen.  Hang on.”

Delilah held the phone tightly in her hand, as she listened to the sound of Sam’s feet.  She heard his hand slap against a door as he pushed it open.

“Dean?” She heard him call out distantly. “He’s not in the kitchen,” he said into the phone. “There’re some stairs here though, maybe they keep the food supplies downstairs.”

Delilah was so tense she could only nod silently, her elbows on the table, her phone clasped tightly to her ear.  She could hear his feet on the stairs.

“Dean!” His voice growled and echoed, even in the phone, as he called to his brother.  Delilah doubted she would hear him replying, but she strained to listen nonetheless, a knot in her stomach tightening.  Delilah heard another door open and Sam said into the phone, “I found him.”  The sound quality changed and suddenly she could hear the scuffling noises all around, he must have put her on speaker.

“Dean! Hey! Hey!” She heard a sound like slapping and a grunt. “Wake up!”

“What took you so long?” Dean mumbled, sounding half asleep and the clamp around her chest released a little.

“What the hell happened?” Sam yelled.  His brother must really be in bad shape.  Delilah didn’t dare say anything though, continuing to listen, still feeling tense.  Goddamned stupid phone, why the hell didn’t she go with them?

“I was drugged,” he said, still sounding groggy as fuck.

“Dru… What?”

Dean groaned and Delilah heard a rustling like he was trying to move. “Uh, pudding.  It was s’posed to be for the clients… but I couldn’t resist,” he added, a smile in his voice.  Delilah couldn’t believe it.  Dean and his fucking sweet tooth.

“What? Salted caramel?” asked Sam incredulously, something making a tinkling sound like glass.

“Yeah man, the best of both worlds.” Good God he sounded so stoned, she thought. “Salty and sweet.”

“Oh my God, seriously Dean?” Delilah couldn’t hold back.  She shook her head completely dumbfounded.

“Lilah?” Dean asked, raising his voice, “What’re you doin’ here?”

“I’m on the phone, dumbass.”

“All right, you stay here,” said Sam, and she heard the phone scrape a little as he put it down on the ground, she assumed, next to Dean.

“No, no, no,” he slurred a reply, “I’m gonna come with you.”  A groan and then a door closed in the distance and Dean spoke louder, “Go ahead man, I’ll catch up.”

Delilah shook her head again.  “Dean, you gotta be more careful.”

“Mmmm,” Dean practically purred, deep in his throat, “You’re sweet and salty too, Lilah.”

Her eyebrows shot right up, oh boy… It didn’t matter that he was high as a kite, Delilah’s whole body went rubbery, and tingly as he continued. “All sugar and spice… and everything nice.”

“You’ve gone into nursery rhyme mode,” she said, smiling sadly at the phone.

“Mmmhmm,” was his only reply.

She listened as his breathing evened out.  He must’ve passed out again.  She sighed, trying to loosen the muscles in her back by rolling her shoulders and rubbing her neck.  She put her own phone on speaker and put it down on the table.  She lay her head down on her folded arms and stared at the lit up screen, the seconds and minutes moving along while the quiet breathing continued.

Delilah was pensive as she waited for Sam’s return.  Dean’s affectionate words, even if they were drug induced, had reminded her of happier times, and now she was nostalgic, wishing things could be like they were.

Delilah heard the door opening again, scrapping on the ground and soon Sam was shaking his brother awake again.  She lifted her head from her arms, attentive again.

“Dean, wake up.”

“Gaah!  What the hell, Sam?” There was a scraping sound and a groan.

“Shut up.  Drink this,” he said, followed by the sound of a carbonated can opening.

“Did you figure out what was in the pudding?” Delilah asked.

“Supplements,” he answered.

“What kind of supplements?” Dean was sounding tired, but the slurriness had gone from his voice.

“To boost metabolism, per Larry and Maritza.”

In the silence, she could hear the sound of capsules in a bottle being shaken.

“These aren’t supplements, they’re roofies,” said Dean with absolute certainty.

“What? How do you know what roofies look like?” asked Sam.

“Seriously,” Delilah agreed, astonished.

“How do you not know?  You think I want to end up in a motel bathtub with my kidney carved out?  In Chechnya?”  Someone sighed, she guessed Sam, but couldn’t be sure.  Dean groaned and went on, “Did you find anything out in the yoga?”

Delilah scooted up in her chair.

“Yeah,” answered Sam, “Invasion of the body snatchers.  Every single person in class had one of those freaky-ass suction marks.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Dean asked, distantly.

Delilah chimed in, “I think I might know.”

“You found something?” asked Sam.

“Yeah.  They’re called Pishtaco.”

“Fish tacos?” said Dean.

“No, you stoner.  Pishtaco, it’s a P.  They’re parasites from Peru.  There are legends dating back centuries about creatures that would steal people’s fat.”

“Gross.  So like vampires, but with a sweet tooth for cellulite.  Ok, how do we kill it?” Dean was sounding more and more like his usual self, definitely back into hunting mode.  Delilah felt conflicted; both glad he was doing better and sad that there was little hope for any more affection now.

“The book doesn’t say.”

“Wait,” Sam interjected, “Did you say Peru?”

“Yeah, it’s where these things come from.”

“Dean, Maritza is from Peru, remember?  In the interview, Larry said that’s where they met.”

“Motherfucker.  Let’s go interrogate us some fish tacos then.”

“Pish…” Oh what was the point?

“Ok, thanks Delilah.  Great work,” Sam told her.

“I try.  Call me later.”

“You got it.”

Delilah stared at the phone for a while, putting her head back down on her arms, Dean on her mind.  She knew that she hadn’t always treated him well, thinking back to when it had been her who rejected his affection, but so much had changed since then.  After the angels, she had let him show her his tender side, taking care of her without even knowing what had happened… He still didn’t know, really.  But then Kevin had died and it was his turn to shut her out.  It had been over a month, and he was holding on to his guilt like a punishment he thought he deserved.  And then he had tried to make amends with Sam and his brother had thrown out the comment about not being family anymore.  She didn’t care what Dean had said yesterday, even without seeing his face, she knew that Sam’s words were eating away at him; he was drinking all the time and hardly sleeping, keeping himself busy every minute of the day with hunting or research.  If something didn’t change soon, she was worried that he would self-destruct.

And then there was this Mark of Cain business.  True Dean had never backed out of doing what had to be done to take down the monster, but to do something like this without thinking of the possible consequences…  This mark was something as old as time with little to no information on it and now it was on his arm – it was a part of him.  Who knew what it would do to him.  Then again, Dean wouldn’t be Dean if at the time he had taken a step back and said to Cain, “Let me check this out and I’ll get back to you.”

Delilah smiled at the ridiculous notion, then she stood up from the table, looking around the empty bunker.  She couldn’t just sit here and dwell on this shit, and she didn’t think she could do any more research today knowing Sam and Dean were currently taking on a new monster.  She walked out the back door of the library and headed to her room.  She threw some shorts, tank top, sports bra, socks and her running shoes into her backpack and headed out to the garage where she had parked the Blue Devil.  A trip to the gym would set her right as rain again.

 ~

She was going on 10 miles, running on the treadmill, her ponytail swinging back and forth as Kansas blared into her ears through her Bluetooth earphones, drowning out the horrible house mix on the gym speakers.  Her t-shirt was sweat soaked and sticking to her skin as she reached for her water bottle.  Her phone started ringing, cutting the music.  She pushed the button on her headset to take the call.

“Yeah?” she said through her heavy breathing.

“Hey,” Sam said, sounding tired.

“Hey, is everything taken care of?”

“Yeah, why are you out of breath?”

Delilah laughed breathily, “Running.  Gym.  Just a sec.”  She adjusted the speed of the treadmill and slowed down to a walk to cool down, grabbing her towel to wipe down her face and neck. “So, what happened with the hunt?”

“You were right; they were pishtaco.”

“They?”

“Yeah, Maritza and her brother, imported directly from Peru.  She and her husband started Canyon Valley so she could feed, but her brother didn’t like the concept of portion control.  He’s the one who killed those people in Stillwater.”

“So, what happened?” she asked, stopping the treadmill completely and sitting down, taking a drink of water from her bottle.  The gym was practically deserted, surprising for the fourth of January, didn’t people usually go crazy with New Year’s resolutions?

“We killed Alonso.  Dean cut out his sucker… tube… thing from his mouth.”

“Did he use a particular blade?” she asked, gathering information to complete her file on pishtaco.

“Naw, no special metal required.  Maritza told us what to do.”

“The sister?  Told you how to kill her brother…  That’s fucked up.”

“Considering Alonso had just killed her husband, not really.  She’s pretty down though.  Says she lost her whole family today.”

Delilah’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean, you didn’t kill her too?”

Sam cleared his throat, “No.  Dean wanted to, but she hasn’t done anything wrong, she wasn’t the killer.  We sent her packing back to Peru though.”

Delilah nodded silently, then said, “You heading back to the bunker?”

“Yeah, just stopped for gas.”

As if on cue, she heard the familiar squeak of the Impala door opening and then the clap of the metal as it shut.  Dean didn’t make a comment about his brother being on the phone this time and she heard the roar of the engine coming to life.

“Ok, well, I’ll see you when you get home,” she told him.

Loud rock music suddenly sounded in her ear, Lynyrd Skynyrd she thought, as Sam yelled at his brother, “Dean!”

She couldn’t hear his reply, but guessing by how the volume got louder, he didn’t care for their conversation.  Sam raised his voice into the phone, “Shoot me now.  We’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Alright, bye Sam.”

The call disconnected too quickly and she figured he hadn’t heard her.  She sighed and headed towards the women’s locker room to shower before heading back home.

 ~

She heard steps in the hallway around midnight as Dean came in from the garage, passing in front of her room to get to his.  She had left her door open while she read in bed: some godawful gas station horror novella she had picked up on her way back from the gym to keep herself distracted.  She forced herself to finish the few remaining pages before leaving her room to check on the boys.

To the right, Dean’s door was wide open, his lights on and spilling out into the dark hallway.  She went left and then down the garage hallway to the junction with the kitchen hallway.  As she drew closer, she could hear voices coming from the kitchen.  She was just about to turn into the side door, when she caught Dean’s words.  She stopped, just on the edge of the doorway, still out of sight of the kitchen, but listening.

“… And I saved your hide at that church.” He paused. “And the hospital.”  Another pause.  Delilah wondered what started them on this conversation, then he continued, “I may not think things all the way through.  Okay? But what I do, I do because it’s the _right_ thing.  I’d do it again.”

Delilah closed her eyes and leaned her back against the wall, feeling frustrated.  Sam doesn’t want to hear you justifying yourself, Dean.  Why couldn’t he just… She heard the tell tale sound of a glass on the table and knew that he was drinking again.

“And that,” said Sam, calmly, “is the problem.” He paused, then started again, weighing his words, “You think, you’re my saviour, my brother the hero.  You swoop in and even when you mess up, you think that what you’re doing is worth it because you’ve convinced yourself you’re… doing more good… than bad.” He paused. “But you’re not.”

Oh Sam!  This is not going to end well, Delilah thought as she let herself slide down the wall to sit on the ground, her knees to her chest.

Sam went on, “I mean Kevin’s dead, Crowley’s in the wind, uh… we’re no closer to beating this angel thing.” His voice was sounding more upset as he went on, “Please, tell me, what is the upside of me being alive?”

“You kidding me?” Dean’s voice was huskier than usual, then it grew louder, “You and me.  Fighting the good fight.  Together.”

Delilah sighed, hearing herself echoed by Sam in the kitchen, followed by a soft, “Okay,” and booted footsteps coming closer.  When Sam started talking again, she could hear his frustration. “Just once, be honest with me.  You didn’t save me… for me.  You did it, for _you_.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Dean sounded so confused.

“I was ready to die.  I was ready.  I _should_ have died,” Delilah was shocked by Sam’s words, as she put two and two together: this was part of what had happened just before she bumped into them in Oklahoma on that Shaman case… Back before she knew anything about their lives.  This was about those trials to close the gates of Hell, Sam had told her about. “But you,” Sam said, pulling her back to the present, “You didn’t want to be alone.  And that’s what all this boils down to,” he said, agitated, “You can’t stand the thought of being alone.”

“Alright,” Dean tried to interrupt him, softly, but Sam just pushed right on, steamrolling his brother.

“I’ll give you this much. You are certainly willing to do the sacrificing, as long as you’re not the one being hurt.”

Delilah wrapped her arms around her knees, holding herself tightly, feeling the pain that Dean must be experiencing at his brother’s words.  She dreaded how he would react, hoping whatever he chose to say or do wouldn’t cause further irreparable damage to the brothers’ relationship.

“Alright, you wanna be honest?” Her heart sank at Dean’s gruff words, fearing the worst. “If the situation were reversed… and _I_ was dying… you’d do the same thing.”

Delilah breathed a sigh of relief, Sam couldn’t fault him for saying that. She pushed herself up and away from the wall, getting ready to walk away back to her room so they wouldn’t know she had been eavesdropping.  She hadn’t realized that Sam would be the one to screw everything up.  She stopped when she heard him speak.

“No, Dean… I wouldn’t,” he said, his voice perfectly level and calm.  “Same circumstances, I wouldn’t.”

She hurried into the kitchen, just in time to see Sam’s back as he went up the steps and disappeared down the hallway.  She turned her head, to see Dean standing by the counter, a glass of whiskey sitting there.  Pain and sadness and anger ripped through her when she saw the look on his face.  He looked lost, defeated and so utterly torn up.  He shifted his gaze to her, the pain so clear.  Delilah didn’t know what to do.  She wanted to go to him, but she was unsure if he would accept her comfort.  He turned his head and body away and slumped against the counter.  When he reached for his whiskey, Delilah stepped closer. She put her hand on his wrist, pushing the glass back down.  Dean didn’t resist her, he leaned there, just watching her with that look still in his eyes.  She reached for him, but before she could make contact, he drew himself up again, grabbed his glass and walked out of reach.  From the table, he grabbed the new bottle of whiskey he must have bought on the way home and walked out of the kitchen.

Give him space, she ordered herself so she wouldn’t chase after him.  One person there though did not need or deserve space.  She walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway to the end and turned left.  When she got to Sam’s room, she pushed open the door without knocking.  He was standing by the bed, shirtless, sorting through the clothes in his bag.  Dark bruises marred his skin and her eyes widened when he turned around to reveal more bruises on his chest and his stomach.  His lip was split too.  She recovered quickly, knowing from experience that it probably looked worse than it was.

Sam looked down and turned away seeing it was her.  She was so angry.

“How long are you gonna keep punishing him?  What the hell, Sam?”  He looked up at her again, frowning, his jaw clenching, clearly angry himself. “He made a mistake.  And you just keep throwing it back in his face every time he tries to make amends!  And to be honest, if that ‘mistake’ means that you’re still alive…  Well I fail to see the problem.”

“Alive at what cost, Delilah?” His voice shook, no longer trying to mask his anger. “Kevin is dead!  Are you saying my life is more important than his?”

She felt like she had been slapped. “No Sam, no.  Of course not.  But Dean was deceived, just like we all were.  He thought he was helping you.  It’s Gadreel who betrayed us and who killed Kevin.  Not you, not Dean and not me either.  All this misdirected anger and guilt is going to tear both of you apart, don’t you see that?  You being angry with Dean, you’re just feeding into his own anger with himself.  I don’t care how much baggage you two have, and I don’t care that you just told him you would let him die, if you end up being the reason he goes out there and does some dumbass fucking thing and gets himself killed, you won’t be able to forgive yourself either.”

Delilah didn’t wait for, nor did she want a response.  She turned around and returned to her room, letting him brood by himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drugged Dean makes me laugh :-)


	3. Spirit of the Old West

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original hunt although I reference S06E18 Frontierland

Nearly two weeks had passed since Sam and Dean had returned from Minnesota and the atmosphere at the bunker had become cold as ice; all three of them pretty much avoiding each other.  Delilah had taken up semi-permanent residence on the mezzanine watching both brothers as they moved back and forth between the main areas of the bunker: kitchen, shower room, library and bedrooms.  Somehow they mostly managed to not cross paths, but when they did bare minimum interaction took place, a strange dance of _Hey_ , and _I’m going for pizza,_ and _We’re out of coffee_.  Delilah being unfamiliar with the particular steps, she mostly chose to stay out of the way, finding an excuse every day for leaving the bunker, at least a couple of hours: errands in town, hitting the gym or the bar, picking up some vegetables so no one came down with scurvy.

Mornings came early these days, the sour mood at the bunker driving her dreams to nightmares most nights and waking her up long before anyone else stirred.  The Dean/Sam, Cain/Abel theme featured prominently in these.  It was no different this morning.

Delilah awoke, heart pounding, eyes snapping open.  She had actually watched Dean kill his brother in this one, and she was shaken by the crazed look in his eyes as he did.  In the pitch blackness, she reached for her phone to look at the time.  She groaned, 4:50am.  She put it back down and turned on her lamp.  She unenthusiastically pulled back the covers and threw her legs over the edge of the mattress, slipping on her flip flops.  She wandered out the door and down the dark hallways, the lamps casting a nightlight strength glow and keeping the place cloaked in shadows.  She yawned and headed into the shower room.  She relieved herself then took a hot shower, melting the last of the nightmare away as she rubbed shampoo into her hair.  She headed back to her room, wrapped in a towel, and got dressed in her usual skinny jeans and t-shirt.  She brushed out her long hair until it lay smooth and let it dry on its own while she brushed her teeth and put on her black eyeliner.  She left her room, grabbing her tablet off the desk and her Kansas U hoodie off the chair.  She made her way to the kitchen, relieved to find it empty.  She never knew when she’d find Dean sitting there.  She started the coffee maker and grabbed bread to make herself some toast.

Routines were easy.  Everything had its place and turn, nothing conflicted and everything got done.  She especially liked it when she could get her day started in the peace and quiet of the sleeping bunker, it gave her a sense of stability in her world gone topsy-turvy.  It’s when she stepped out of her routine that things went back to batshit.

She spread peanut butter on her toast and poured herself a large cup of coffee, stirring in her sugar before heading out of the room and into the main hall.  The library lights were off too, which meant no one was doing any early morning/late night research.  She moved up the cast iron staircase, the lights on behind the blue-green glass wall.  She kept the main lights off, liking the dim lighting, and settled at the little table with the chessboard so she could have her breakfast.  She turned on her tablet screen and idly browsed the world wide web.

Dean wandered by the world table below a couple hours later, almost always up and about before his brother.  He was wearing jeans and his yellow and brown plaid flannel shirt.  He had a cup of coffee in his hand as he shuffled into the library.  She returned to her tablet, but was out of her chair calling his name moments later.  She clambered down the stairs and met him on the library steps.  He was looking around confused, his eyebrows knitted together.

“Dean, I got a case.”

“Is that all?” He glanced up at her sweater draping over the chair.  “Were you sitting in the dark up there?”

She gave him an exasperated look. “What does it matter?  We need to go take care of this.”

Dean turned his eyes on her and stared at her with unblinking focus for a few seconds.  Then he looked away. “Yeah, ok. Lemme go wake up Sam.”

“No need,” Delilah said, “I’ll come with you.”

He looked at her again, this time frowning.  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why the hell not?” she asked, outrage filling her up. “Fine, if you don't want to come with me, I’ll go on my own.”  She tried to move towards the kitchen hallway, but found herself stopped by Dean’s hand on her arm.

“Alright, calm down.” He sighed and let go of her arm. “Are we leaving right now?”

“As soon as possible,” she answered, already heading out the side door towards her room.

 ~

She smoothed her hands along the beige leather of the door.  She was happy sitting shotgun in Baby; it had been a long time.  The smell of Dean filled the space inside the car and she took a deep breath without thinking, flooding her system with him.  She was suddenly worried; she hadn’t hunted with him since… Wisconsin, with Garth.  She had been avoiding being alone with him ever since, and here they were in the car, a few hours’ drive ahead of them.

“You mind telling me where we’re headed?” he asked, sounding only mildly curious, like the destination really didn’t matter.

“Just head south on the 281.”

He was looking at the road, sitting back against the bench seat, his left leg bent and leaning against the door, his right foot pressing down on the gas pedal.  He was loosely holding the wheel, looking so damn comfortable driving his car, speeding down the road.  He and Sam had grown up in this car, she remembered as she looked around.  The windshield was fogging up a bit because of the cold morning and Dean leaned over and started the heater.  A clunking, rattling sound started and she looked at the dashboard a little worried.  Dean did all the maintenance on his car, why would anything be rattling? He glanced at her when she turned to ask him, but he already had the answer for her.

“Legos in the vents,” he said.

Delilah frowned at him. “Why… are there Legos in the vents?  I mean, surely, you can get them out, no?”

Dean was quiet, frowning in the morning glare, “I put ‘em there… Why would I take ‘em out?” He turned his head, looked right at her and gave her his most charming, ear-to-ear grin, setting the butterflies a-flutter in her stomach.  She shook her head at his silliness and he turned back to the road a moment later, reaching for the radio to turn it on.  “Oh, and don’t call me Shirley,” he added, still grinning as Delilah rolled her eyes.

AC/DC started pouring out of the speakers and Dean enthusiastically tapped the wheel to the drums.  Delilah huffed, amused.  “You’re in a good mood this morning.”

“Why wouldn't I be?  I’m on the road with my Baby and some good music.  A man can’t ask for more.”

“I dunno,” she said, looking down at her feet, “I thought you had objections to the company.”

He didn’t respond, his smile resettling into his more customary frown and his tapping becoming more subdued as she glanced at him and then directed her gaze out the side window.  She was kicking herself.  Why did she have to bring that up?

“At least I’m not stuck at the bunker.” She turned her head to look at him. “I can always just leave _you_ on the side of the road if you get on my nerves.”

“Har har, smartass,” she responded, although he wasn’t quite smiling when he said it making her think that part of him really might want to get rid of her.

She stared ahead as trees and fields rolled by, and they fell silent, the rock music setting an almost cheerful mood.  She was almost enjoying herself, if it wasn’t for the underlying tension she could feel pulling at her uneasily.  She looked at Dean out of the corner of her eye, unable to ignore that this was the closest she’d been to him without him running away in a long time.  She had gotten used to his longer facial hair, quite liking how the dark made his eyes look more intensely green.  The memory of the pain in those green eyes went through her like a tremor.

“You need to be careful.” Dean’s words snapped her out of her daze. “Keep staring at me like that.  I’ll start feeling self-conscious.”

She hadn’t even realized she had turned towards him completely.  Still the notion of Dean being self-conscious was laughable and she snorted derisively.  “As if you don’t know you’re sexy,” she said, thinking of all the girls that check him out when they were out.

“You think I’m sexy?” he asked, making her turn her head sharply and catching his waggling eyebrows.

“That’s not what I meant.  I’m referring to the endless line of waitresses and barmaids that slip you their numbers looking for a good fuck,” she said, failing to sound as casual as she had hoped as a note of bitterness slipped out.

“Hey!  Don’t objectify me,” his tone was teasing but his eyes were hard, staring straight ahead, “Besides, you’re pretty judgmental, Miss Kisses-Random-Guys-In-Bars.”

Delilah reacted angrily, unable to stop the escalation, “Are you seriously still stuck on that?  And he wasn’t a random guy, I was on a date.”

“Yeah? How does Sammy feel about that?  He know you’re screwing around behind his back?” All the lightness was gone from his voice, turning their tense teasing into a full on argument.

“What!?” Delilah practically shouted. “The fuck are you going on about?  Sam’s the one who told me to go on the date in the first place.”

“Oh! So it’s like that… huh, never thought my little brother would go for the casual thing.”

Delilah frowned at him, her anger leaning towards disgust. “Are you fucking mental?  I already told you, Sam and I are friends.  That’s it.”

She shook her head, angry and amazed that of all the things she would have wanted to discuss with him, this is what they were arguing about.  She took a deep breath and tried to regain control of her emotions.  Time to change the subject.

“I’ve been researching the mark.  Not much luck so far though, I’ve combed through the library but there’s no mention of it.”

“I could have told you that,” he said, flatly, his tone setting her on edge again.

“Could you?  That explains why it took a month for me to find out about it in the first place!  You’re not exactly forthcoming.”

“It’s not that important,” he mumbled.

“Not important?” She was getting riled up again. “There’s a fucking biblical mark on your arm that will somehow make it possible for you to kill a Knight of Hell and that’s not important?  Bullshit, Dean.  You’re just keeping me out of the loop on purpose.”  She crossed her arms on her chest. “How does it work anyhow?  Did Cain say anything?”  She shook her head again; she was talking about THE Cain.

“No,” he answered, his voice dull and emotionless, “Just that for the blade to work, I needed the mark.”

Delilah stared at him, mouth agog. “Did you even ask any questions?”

This time it was Dean who got angry, “You weren’t there.  You don’t know what it was like.  Cain and Crowley manipulated me.”

“Wow, shocker!  Crowley manipulating you.  He knows all your buttons and enjoys pressing the fuck out of them.  So, what? you got angry and reacted without thinking?  Doing something with potentially terrible repercussions? You’re like a broken record, stuck on repeat.”  They were both shouting again.

“What the fuck do you know anyways?  You’ve been in our lives for all of five minutes, you think you’ve got me all figured out?”

“Is it supposed to be hard?  You’re not exactly complicated.  Sam nailed it with the hero complex thing.”

She was waiting for Dean to respond, but he didn’t.  When she looked over at him, his hands were gripping the wheel tightly and he was grinding his teeth.  She instantly felt horrible and looked away, ashamed.  She couldn’t believe she had said that.  She had been so angry with Sam for tearing his brother up like he had, and now she had just done the same thing.  Talk about irreparable damage.  She leaned her elbow on the window frame and rested her head on her hand, staring out at the town they were rolling through, trying to get a handle on her anger; she could practically hear her blood rushing in her ears.  Why was it that she couldn’t have a normal conversation with the man?  She had so much pent up anger towards him, not to mention a shit ton of unresolved feelings, but she really didn’t want to think about that.

Delilah glanced at the radio as familiar notes came pouring out of the speakers, the eerie minor chord sending shivers down her spine.  As John Lennon sang the first words, it took everything for her not to turn it off.  _I want you, I want you so bad…_ Talk about inappropriate timing.  Delilah turned away, looking out the window, trying to hide how uncomfortable she was.  Lennon didn’t seem to care, he just kept right on repeating it, the heavy riff and desperation in his voice driving her mad, her desire completely ignoring her orders to settle the fuck down.  It felt like forever before the song transitioned into the next bit and stopped tormenting her.  She didn’t dare look to where Dean was sitting not wanting him to misinterpret (or correctly interpret?) the source of her discomfort.  Stupid brain, when did she become so insecure?  Lennon started again with his torment, and she didn’t think she could take any more, how long was this fucking song anyhow?

Suddenly the music screeched with radio static and she looked around to see Dean’s arm fiddling with the radio dial.  He avoided her eyes as well as he settled on another station.  She wondered if the song had made him as uncomfortable as her.

The miles rolled on by as she looked out the window and her thoughts turned to the case to distract her.  The case itself wasn’t all that important, what had caught her attention was the name of the town: Dodge City.  She actually grew up in nearby Cimarron and often drove into the bigger city with her parents for shopping and such.  She was actually kind of nervous about going back there, she hadn’t returned to her old place since her mother’s death.

She noticed the sign for their turn off and she told Dean to follow the 56. He frowned.

“You planning on letting me know anything about the case?” he asked her, no trace of the anger from before.

She glanced at him, shyly, and pulled out her tablet. “We’re going to Dodge City.”

“Awesome!” Dean said, sounding genuinely pleased.

She frowned at him, confused by his reaction. “You know Dodge?”

“Cowboy Capital of the World? ‘Course I know it.  Never been though.  So what are we hunting?  The ghost of Wyatt Earp?”

“Oh God, I hope not.  He’d be a nasty ghost to gank I think.  But it’s kind of along those lines.  I came across a newspaper article about what they’re calling “The Spirit of the Old West.”

“Mmmm, sounds like a gimmick for tourists,” he said unconvinced.

“That’s what I thought too, but I dug a little deeper, and there have been some strange coincidences and unexplained deaths in town.”

She spent the next half hour running through the details she had managed to collect before getting in the car with him.  People had been dropping dead from bullet wounds, but there was no sign of a shooter, or even a bullet.  Some of these odd deaths had been witnessed by people, but they hadn’t seen or heard the gunshot, just the victim suddenly collapsing.

On top of that, for the past few weeks, Dodge City had been the site of some pretty unique paranormal activity.  The article she had found, that had dubbed it _The Spirit of the Old West_ , wrote that two mysterious figures, dressed in full cowboy attire, one in white and the other in black, would appear at either end of Front Street at five minutes to noon, walk towards each other, stop about ten feet apart and stand still. At noon exactly, a distant bell would start tolling, the two cowboys would draw their pistols and fire, the white clad cowboy falling down dead.  By the time the bell tolled its twelfth ring, both cowboys would disappear.

Dean pondered, frowning out the windshield as his brain tried to connect everything together.

“Are the spirits responsible for the odd deaths?” he asked.

“The article hasn’t connected the deaths with the spirits.  Uh, I came across them separately.”

“Ok, so how is it connected?”

“I’m not sure.  The deaths occurred at different times in different places.  The only thing that seems to go with these spirits is that they died from being shot, and no bullet was found in the wounds.”

Dean gave her a sideways glance, “This is your case?  Some people drop dead and a tourist trap?”

She frowned at him, exasperated.  “Yes, this is my case.  There’s something going on here and I’m going to figure out what.  If you don’t want to help, just drop me off in the next town and I’ll fucking get there myself.”

“Calm down, don’t get all insane again.”  Delilah turned and glared at him, holding back a well earned fuck you.  “I’m not leaving you on the side of the road.  We’re almost there anyways, might as well check it out.”

 ~

The black Impala rolled into town around nine, the morning sun beating down on her, making her shine.  Dean pulled up into a parking spot down a side road.  Delilah pushed open the door and climbed out, throwing on her brown corduroy jacket.  She was glad she had thought to snap in the fleece lining, it must be around 20 degrees, she guessed.  She reached back inside to get her bag when she noticed Dean standing by the car, one arm on the open door, one on the roof and his right leg up on the runner.  He was looking in the distance, narrowing his eyes dramatically against the sunshine.  Confused, Delilah turned to look in the same direction, but there was nothing to see, just the nondescript back of a building.

“ _I always heard there was three kinds of suns in Kansas_ ,” Dean said, still glaring at nothing as Delilah turned to look at him, “ _sunshine, sunflowers and... sons of bitches_."

She blinked as he turned his head to look at her, full grin on his face.  “What the hell are you going on about?” she asked him.  She slung her messenger bag over her head and Dean’s shoulders slumped a little as he reached into the car and tucked a gun into the back of his pants.

“Ah come on, Lilah!” he said as he closed the door and walked over to her, “It’s from a movie.”

“Oh dear God, is that what this hunt is gonna be like? An endless supply of quotes from Clint Eastwood movies?”  Dean’s smile fell off his face and Delilah tried to keep her straight look as she decided how best to tease him, then she looked him right in the eyes, “ _Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let's go! We're burnin' daylight!_ " She winked at him and then turned around, heading for Front Street, where the spirits made their noontime appearances, Dean catching up to her, his boots crunching on the cold pavement.

Delilah’s mood was hard to gauge, even for her.  On the one hand, the familiarity of a city she spent a lot of time in as a child was comforting; for someone who felt like she had never really belonged anywhere, she felt a deep connection here.  Yet at the same time, she was sad, as memories of time spent with her mother also came back.  The end result was a brooding, pensiveness as she stood at the end of the reconstructed historical street, looking at the store fronts, and remembered how she couldn’t come into town with her mom without walking down and looking in at the windows of each building, gazing in at the historical artifacts.  It used to drive her mother nuts, this need to stop in every time, but she always did, and by the time they got to the end, they were always smiling and laughing.

“Hey, you ok?” Dean’s rough voice asked her, sounding concerned.

She looked at him: he was frowning, perplexed. “Great!” she answered, overly cheerful. “Come on, this is where the spirits have been showing up.”

The tourist attraction was relatively deserted, this not being peak cowboy season – the main festival that attracted crowds was in the summer, and the Christmas rush too would have died down by now.  She pulled her EMF reader out of her bag and slowly walked down the street towards the centre, where the spirits supposedly had their showdown.  Dean trailed behind her, doing God knows what.  The readings on the EMF were slowly getting stronger as she passed the drugstore’s storefront.  Dean called her back though, “Hey, check this out.”

Delilah stopped and turned to look at him.  He was standing on the porch in front of the Long Branch saloon and she rolled her eyes as she walked over to where he was standing.

“It’s a bit early for a drink, _Pilgrim_.”

This time it was Dean who gave her an annoyed look. “No smarty pants, check out the poster.”

He was pointing to a wanted style poster in the window, the title read _Spirits of the Old West_ in bold lettering and it had on it the drawings of two generic, faceless cowboys, one clearly dressed in white and the other in black in the two tone drawing.

“This is looking more like a tourist thing by the minute.  I think we’re wasting our time looking around here.”

“I still think we should stick around to watch the spirits appear, I’m sure we can spot a fake, if it is fake.”

Dean glanced down at his watch, pulling back his sleeve to read the time. “That’s not for another couple hours.  I can go check out those bodies and be back here in time for the show.”

“Ok then, let’s go.”

Dean frowned, looking at her, his head tilted to the side a little like he was sizing her up.  “This is FBI territory, you sure?  If you’re gonna wait in the car, might as well stick around here.”

She held his gaze, ignoring a little shiver she couldn’t control running through her. “Who said anything about waiting in the car, Agent?  I’m coming with.”

She started walking past him, heading back to the car and putting away the EMF reader.  Dean caught up to her with his long strides. “What’s your cover?  Assistant Director of the FBI?  Maybe you can pull it off on the phone, but no one’s gonna believe it in person, you’re too…”

“Pretty?” she said, turning to face him while she waited for him to unlock the trunk so she could get her bag.

“Young.  I was gonna say young.”

He opened the trunk and she reached in, grabbing the handle of her overnight bag, rolling her eyes.  “Pffft.  You and Sam’ve been masquerading as FBI since you were what?  25?” She paused, analyzing his fine facial features: the wide green eyes, straight nose, plump lips… even with his new scruff and strong jaw he did not look his age. “If your baby face could pull it off then, so can I.  Just say I’m a forensics consultant.”

She started walking away, heading for the nearby McDonald’s when Dean called out again, “Where’re you going?”

She turned to look at him again, he was getting his suit out of the trunk. “Maybe you can get away with changing in the car, but I prefer a bathroom stall thanks.  Besides, it’s cold as fuck today.” She turned around and started walking away but on second thought threw out over her shoulder, “And don’t you dare leave me behind!”

She walked across the street to the warm fast food joint.  She was back in a few minutes dressed in a black mini skirt with black nylon stockings and grey, chamois leather, ankle high boots, a white collared shirt and a black blazer, her brown coat in her arms.  She had tied her hair into a sock bun and added a bit of black eyeliner and light grey powder to her eyes.

Dean was already sitting behind the wheel with the engine idling as she opened the back door and tossed her bag and coat onto the seat.  She sat down in the front rubbing her arms for warmth as Dean started saying, “What took you so long?  I was about to send out a…”

He stopped talking as he turned his head towards her.  She looked at him, feeling annoyed, she had been gone barely ten minutes, and that’s counting the time she had wasted struggling into the damned pantyhose, next time she was packing a pant suit.  His eyes had strayed from her face down to her legs, his throat working visibly to swallow.  She turned away to hide her shy smile, ok… maybe the pantyhose had been worth it.

 ~

They pulled into a parking spot at the police station, got out of the car and headed for the front door.  They walked up to the front desk, Dean reaching into his inside coat pocket for his fake badge.  He was wearing his charcoal grey suit with his thick, black dress coat on top.

“Special Agent Stanley, I’d like to see Chief Harris.”

The desk officer looked at Dean’s badge quickly and then to Delilah who was standing a couple steps behind Dean, letting him take the lead.  She gave him a smile, holding her tablet loosely in her right hand.  He picked up the phone on the desk and spoke into it briefly, before putting it down again and indicating the chairs on one side of the small lobby.

They sat down, Delilah crossing her legs at the knee and putting her tablet in her lap.  Dean’s arm and leg were almost brushing up against hers, the chairs placed so close together, and she started swinging her foot a bit, out of nerves, not wanting to look at him too closely.  Whatever possessed her to come out with him in the first place was beyond her, she should have just waited for Sam, even with their arguing, she was never this uncomfortable with him.

“Could you stop that?” Dean said suddenly, keeping his tone hushed.

Delilah turned to look at him, “Stop what?”

He reached over and put his hand on her knee, making her stop the movement as heat ran up her thigh.  He pulled his hand away, the feel of him lingering and she squeezed her thighs together, feeling her face heat up a little.  Thankfully, the chief came out just then and they got back to the business at hand.

“I’m Chief Harris, how can I help you?”

Dean pulled out his badge again as they stood up, “I’m Special Agent Stanley, this is Delilah Carr, our forensics specialist.  We’re here to look into the shootings.”

The chief led them through the bullpen and into his office where they could discuss more quietly.  He sat down behind his desk and indicated the two chairs across from him.  Dean sat down, smoothing his red striped tie.  Not wanting to be dismissed by the men, she stayed up and looked the chief squarely in the eyes.  In a firm voice she asked to see the crime scene photos and autopsy reports.

“Spitfire, this one,” said the chief to Dean as he leaned over towards his desk phone.

“Oh, you have no idea,” Dean responded, conspiratorially.

The chief spoke into his phone’s speaker, requesting the files from his assistant.  He and Dean continued to small talk, seemingly without purpose until Delilah heard Dean slip in the mention about Front Street and the cowboy spirits and she realized he was drawing information about the case without raising any suspicion.  She kept looking around the office casually as the chief chuckled and made light of the whole thing, not claiming a sham, but staying away from words like paranormal and ghosts.

The chief’s assistant knocked on the door and came in carrying a small stack of thin beige files stamped with Dodge City Police Department on the cover.  She took the files from the girl, who looked a few years younger than herself, and settled into the chair beside Dean, trying to balance the files on her knees, while looking through the top one.

As Dean and Chief Harris discussed the details surrounding the different shootings, including the odd lack of bullets, she couldn’t help but feel in awe of him.  She remembered how difficult it had been to get anything out of the cops when she had hunted down that lamia and how she’d had to resort to flirting to get it, but watching him now, discussing so professionally with the chief of police, it was a wonder that the brothers needed her FBI boss cover at all.

She scanned through the information in the top file feeling a little discouraged.  She knew there was no way she could walk out of the precinct with these files, or even a copy of them, and she wanted to be able to refer back to the information later; there were so many and she didn’t want to miss an important detail.  A plan formed in her head and she started fumbling more with the files, getting both the chief and Dean’s attention.  Dean reached over and tried to take a couple of them out of her hands. “Let me help you with those Ms Carr.”

“Actually,” she said, turning a charming smile on the chief, “Is there somewhere I can spread out and look at these properly?  Maybe a conference room?”

“Of course, the conference room is on the left through the bullpen, I can have Alicia accompany you if you wish.”

She stood up, clutching at the files and her tablet, trying to get them in order. “Oh, no thank you, Chief.  I think I can manage.”

Dean’s eyebrows barely flinched as he tried to understand what she was doing but went along anyways. “I’ll come find you when I’m done here.”

“That’s fine, take your time Agent.”

She walked out of the office.  Alicia, the assistant, looked up from her desk by the chief’s door and Delilah pointed to the files in her arms and said, “Conference room,” with a smile and a shrug.  Alicia pointed the way and Delilah thanked her.  She walked across the room filled with the various officers’ desks, most not glancing twice at her as she pushed open the conference room door.  She let it shut behind her and put the files down on the large, dark wood table.  She wasted no time opening each file and spreading them out, photos on one side of the folder and the report on the other.  Glancing around at the windowed door she activated her tablet and opened the picture app.  Holding the camera square over the file she took a picture of each one, making sure they weren’t blurry before moving on to the next.  This way she could easily look through them again later.  She snapped pictures of each of the seven files quickly before she was discovered.  She really didn’t have anything to worry about though, and she finished up the last of the files without being interrupted.

She breathed a sigh of relief and decided to do what she had said she was doing while she waited for Dean to come find her.  She stood, leaning on the table edge and started looking through the files for patterns and similarities between the incidents.  When Dean pushed open the door a half hour later, she was no further ahead.

“Did you find anything in there?” Dean asked her, walking over to the table and picking up one of the crime scene photos.

“Nothing that links the victims to Front Street.  There’s no apparent pattern or similarities between the kill sites, nothing connecting them to each other at all.  Even the times of death vary, some happening as late as 9 or 10 pm.”  Dean just nodded his head, taking it in and picking up a coroner’s report from the table as she went on, “And it’s weird, the spirits have been appearing every day for the last two weeks right?  Well, if these deaths are somehow connected to that, why aren’t there more victims?”

“Because not all the deaths happened in Dodge City limits,” he said, putting down the file and turning around to sit on the edge of the table to face her.  “Chief Harris was telling me that they’ve been cooperating with the Gray County Sheriff’s department because they’ve been dealing with similar issues over in their territory.”

“Did you say Gray County?” Delilah’s heart gave an involuntary pound.  Gray county was where she had lived.

“Yeah, I’m betting some of the other counties might also have had issues, I kinda made it sound that way to the chief.  Helps to explain our involvement, wide spread issue like this.”

“Good thinking… but what the hell is going on?  How could all these deaths be because of a ghost? Aren’t they tethered usually?  How is it getting around all the way out in Gray?”

“Dunno, some spirits are strong enough to manifest where they want, vengeful spirits particularly, they’re powered by their need for revenge.  Some of them can go where their victims are regardless of their bones’ resting spot.” He glanced at his watch again. “Come on, we don’t want to miss the show.”  Delilah started gathering the files in a neat pile. “Do you think we can sneak those out of here?” he asked her.

“No need, I already took pictures of everything.  It’s all in my tablet.”

He smiled at her. “Awesome!  That’s some good thinking, partner.”

She smiled at his praise and felt a warm glow in her chest.  She handed him the files as he straightened up again.  They walked out of the conference room and he went to give the files back to Alicia, who seemed to duck her head and blush.  Delilah felt like a fool and her smile melted off her face.  She couldn’t believe she fell for his usual charm, the same shit he pulled on the poor unsuspecting women folk of the world and didn’t mean a damn thing.  You’d think she would know better.  She hugged her tablet to her chest and started heading out the door, wanting nothing more than to return to her comfortable jeans and loose fitting shirts.  He caught up to her just outside the police building’s main doors and they walked silently back to the car.

A few minutes later they were back in Front Street looking around at the increased tourist traffic.  They picked a spot along the porch out in front of the drug store and waited.  Delilah had left her black blazer in the car, replacing it with her much warmer corduroy jacket, but she hadn’t had time to change back into her jeans and she stood there shivering as the cold air wrapped her legs.  Why can’t these ghosts hurry this the fuck along so she could go warm up somewhere?

Suddenly, a hush fell over the gathered crowd and people turned to face either end of the street, looking back and forth.  Delilah couldn’t see what they were all looking at, but a chill crept down her spine as she heard the all too familiar sound of spurs hitting the ground and spinning.  She kept her eyes riveted on a white clad figure as he came into view to her right, moving forward.  Another shiver took her and the little hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she looked under the rim of the cowboy’s hat and saw no defining facial features.  To her left and further down, a similar black clad shape came into view enough for her to see that he also had no face.  They both stopped moving, coming to a standstill, the white spirit directly in front of her.  Other than the face, it looked corporeal, the light not shining through him, and the shape not flickering at all.  The seconds ticked by and a surge like static electricity made her whole body tingle and her heartbeat increased, fear clutched at her like it had when Adriel had tortured her and she could not take her eyes off the spectacle in front of her.  Her eyes widened as the eerie sound of distant bells started ringing in her head, reminding her of the banshee scream.  Suddenly a gunshot rang out and the crowd screamed, some people ducking down, Delilah looked ahead and saw the blood blossoming on the white clothing and the spirit dramatically dropped to the ground as the bells continued to chime.  The other spirit was holding a smoking gun still looking at his opponent.  The last of the bell peels rang and the sound dissipated from her mind like an echo as she realized the duelists had also disappeared.

Delilah took a breath, the intense fear now also just gone, as the crowd started talking, some laughing nervously, and the people started walking off in different directions.

“I think it’s safe to say it’s not a hoax,” said the rough voice behind her shoulder.

She turned to look at Dean who was looking as shaken as her.

“Yeah, agreed.”

They headed back out to the Impala, heading down the main road to the bar and grill to look over the case files for more clues.  They ordered lunch and a couple of beers and tried brainstorming through the different scenarios that could link the apparitions with the different deaths in town.  Nothing seemed to fit though, and Delilah was growing more irritated by the puzzle pieces.  At least now Dean seemed to be completely on board, admitting something was definitely happening.  Delilah’s phone bleeped and she pulled it out of her pocket.

_Where are you?_

“Sam checking up on you?” asked Dean, not looking up from his plate.

“Shut up.  We did leave without saying anything.”

She typed in a quick reply about hunting a spirit in Dodge City with Dean and put her phone away.  Dean leaned back in the seat, turning his attention towards the restaurant.  She went back to reading up on the history of the town.  They had been sitting silently for a few minutes, when she came across a new piece of information.

“Did you know Front Street was built above the original Dodge City cemetery?”

Dean reached for his beer and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table.  “Hmmm,” was all he said so Delilah pushed on.

“Well, couldn’t it be possible, that the spirits actually are gunslingers from the original Dodge City?” she asked him, looking at him expectantly, although she had already moved on to the complication of exhuming bones from graves over a hundred years old and buried under buildings.

He took another swallow of his beer, “They’re not spirits from the Old West,” he said with absolute certainty.

“Why not?  Everything is a perfect image of a noon showdown, down to the last detail.” Dean was shaking his head. “What then?”

“They’re not really from the Old West, they only look like they are.  Trust me, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and these spirits look like they came from Hollywood.  Doesn’t match the real thing.”

“You’re basing yourself on old grainy photographs from the turn of the century?  Those things are so blurry, we don’t know what things were really like.”

He let out a chuckle. “I’m not talking about photographs and old movies, sweetheart, I’ve been there… then… whatever.”

She just frowned at him confused, when did he become so delusional?  He took another swallow of beer, finishing it and pointed to their waitress for another one.  Delilah kept right on staring at him, waiting for further explanation.  He sighed. “So a few years back we were hunting this crazy bitch: Eve, mother of all.”

“Wait, not Eve as in Adam and Eve?”

Dean frowned, “Naw, unrelated I think.  Eve is the mother of all supernatural creatures, she created all things monster: vampires, werewolves, ghouls, jefferson starships…”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah, she created these fucked up hybrids,” he started explaining, really getting into it.

Delilah cut him off, “Yeah but… jefferson starships?”

“Yup! ‘Cause they’re horrible and hard to kill.” His shit eating grin was back on his face as Delilah tried once again to grasp that Dean’s life was so far left of fucked up that she couldn’t even begin to wrap her head around it. “I named them,” he said proudly.

“Of course you did… How does this get you in the land of cowboys?”

“Oh right.” The waitress dropped off his beer and he looked up at her, giving her a wink and his boyish smile, she smiled back, not giving Delilah a second glance.  She would’ve made a comment had Dean not been in the middle of the most insane story.  His eyes followed the waitress as she sashayed away and Delilah cleared her throat, dragging his attention away from the ass. “Right, so only thing could send Eve back to purgatory was phoenix ash.” He paused, looking at her expectantly.

“Yeah? Go on.”

“Just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to interrupt me again.”

Delilah was going to lose her shit if he didn’t get to the point soon.  “Just tell me where all this gets you a hundred years in the past.”

“A hundred and fifty.” Delilah just gestured for him to go on. “I found Samuel Colt’s journal in my grandfather’s books and he wrote that he had killed a phoenix back in 1861 in Wyoming.  We needed phoenix ash, so we went and got it.”

“We?”

“Sam and me.”

“Sam was there too?  Oh good, a joint delusion.”  Delilah shook her head, how was any of this even possible?  “How did you get to 1861?”

“Dropped a dime to Cas.”

Delilah sat back completely lost for words…. Goddamned fucking angels again, was there anything they couldn’t do?  He drank from his fresh beer, a cocky little smirk on his face that Delilah just wanted to smack off of him.  Rather than wrap her head around the whole thing, she just chose to believe Dean knew what he was talking about when it came to the cowboys.

“Ok, so assuming they’re not actually spirits from cowboys, where does that leave us?  Who are they?”

“My best guess?  A western enthusiast.”

“It’d have to be one heck of an obsession for these guys to manifest as gunslingers…”

Dean shrugged, his gaze wandering again.  Delilah frowned at the table.  If she was looking for a more recent person, maybe the link wasn’t in the locations of the deaths, but in the deaths themselves.  She looked through the police files again, completely focused on her task.  She was going to solve this thing.  It didn’t take her long to see the pattern once she had shifted to the victims themselves.  Her heart sank into her shoes.

“Dean,” she said not looking up from her tablet, “I think I got it.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“I found a connection between the victims.” She swallowed hard. “All the victims are from Cimarron.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Their home addresses are from all over, just like the kill sites, but every single one of them have the next of kin listed as living in Cimarron.”

Dean frowned, taking the tablet from her and looking at the screen.  He swiped and mumbled something about preferring paper and Delilah rolled her eyes.

“We might be looking for a kid,” he said.

He tried to turn the tablet towards her across the table, but the screen rotated, he tilted it back frustrated.  Delilah tried hard not to laugh at him.  She slipped off her bench and came to sit next to him on his side taking the tablet from him.  He reached his arm over to point to something on the screen, slinging his other arm on the back of the booth bench so he could get closer.  She tried to listen to what he was saying about the birthdays and age ranges of the victims while her hormones went wild, his leg was pressed against hers under the table, their hips touching, and all she would have to do is tilt her head to the side a bit and she’d be resting it on his shoulder.  God he smelled good.

“Let’s head out to Cimarron, see if we can’t talk to some of the people who saw it happen.”

That snapped her right back to the here and now. “Cimarron?  You sure we need to go there?”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking at her with a small frown, “This was your lead.”

“Oh yeah, I know… I just.” She looked at the picture of the victim on her tablet and decided that she needed to save any future victims from this ghost… sad past and twisted memories be damned.  “Alright, let’s get going then.”

⭐

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist making Dean talk in quotes, lol. Here are the movies they're from.
> 
> The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)  
> The Cowboys (1972)


	4. Mama, I'm Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Ozzy Osborne's song... although my boyfriend would kill me if I didn't specify that it was written by Lenny Kilmister of Motörhead. ;-)
> 
> The gratuitously explicit sexual content is in this one... hang in there!
> 
> Also, I apologize to the residents of Cimarron who might actually read this (what are the odds?) for the bullshit legend I invented... the idea is neat though right?

Delilah stared straight ahead as they rolled down the main road out of town and then reached the city limits to Cimarron.  They made it all the way to the first witness’s house, she not making a sound, just staring out the window lost in thought as more memories from her childhood jumbled around in her head.

The Impala came to a full stop and she still didn’t move.  Dean broke the silence, “ _You know you’re a nag? …A very pretty one, but a nag_.”

She smiled absently. “More quotes, Dean?”

“You’re never this quiet.”

She turned to look at him, his eyes were full of concern as he looked at her, his body turned towards her slightly, his arm along the seat back.

“I’ll be fine.  Honest.  Let’s just get to the bottom of this case and get the hell out of Dodge.”

Dean stuck his thumb towards the rear window, “Well, I think technically we already did.”

She laughed, shaking her head at him. “Shut up, you dumbass.”

“And she’s back.”

They got out of the car for what felt like the hundredth time that day and headed up the walk to the front door.  A woman in her late forties answered, letting them in after Dean showed her his FBI badge.  They were shown into a tidy living room with robin egg blue walls and cream and yellow accents.  She offered them a cup of coffee and they accepted.  When the woman returned with the steaming cups, Delilah let Dean take lead on the questions, only half listening as the woman told them about her son’s untimely demise.

They had been doing groceries, picking up some food for him to bring back to his dorm on campus at Southwestern, where he played football, and then suddenly he clutched his chest and keeled over. The poor woman had thought he was having a heart attack or something, until she saw the blood.  She had not heard a gun shot or seen anything out of the ordinary.

They left shortly after and went on to the next witness’s home.  This time it was the fourth victim’s sister they spoke to.  She told them the same story: out with her brother when he suddenly fell over, shot straight to the heart.  No gun shot, no shooter.  She did however think she had heard a distant bell tolling, but that was impossible because the bell only ever sounded at noon.

“What do you mean, it only sounds at noon?”  Dean asked.

The girl looked awkward suddenly, like she was embarrassed. “It’s just a stupid urban legend.”

Delilah leaned forward on the sofa, towards the girl.  “I’m a big fan of urban legends, I did a class on them back in college.” She smiled, trying to make the girl feel comfortable.  She just saw Dean, out of the corner of her eye, lean back on the sofa, giving her the reins on the interview. “I especially like local folklore.  This place must be full of it with the area’s history.”

She looked at the girl expectantly and after another awkward glance towards Dean, she told them about the bell tower near Cimarron High.  The legend said that if you heard the bell sounding at noon, you were sure to die that day.

“I don’t get it,” said Dean, rejoining the discussion, “What’s so special about a bell tolling at noon?”

“There is no bell in the tower, not since the original church was burned down.”

Dean looked pensive but didn’t ask any more questions.  They wrapped up the interview and left the house, climbing back into the car.  He drove away while Delilah did a quick search on the bell tower legend.

“So, turns out, the original church beside the high school was an old frontier church.  They rang the bell to signal attacks from the native tribes.  It burned down after a noon raid.  The original bell is a monument out front from where they rebuilt the church fifty years ago.”

“Prime urban legend fodder if you ask me.”

“But why would the victims of the spirit hear that particular bell?  It makes no sense.  The attack that destroyed the church happened back in 1890.  It’s completely unrelated to the profile for the spirit.”

“Not necessarily, we’re looking for an Old West fanatic remember?  Local legend could figure in his haunting if it was something he cared about enough.  This actually tells us our ghost is local.”

“So, should we go check out the bell tower?”

“Yup.”

They pulled up a few minutes later and passed the EMF all around the base of the tower, but it stayed completely silent, no trace of paranormal activity.  They climbed back into the car and Delilah stared out the window at a few students from the high school walking across the field, as they thought about their next move.  Dean was considering checking out the sheriff’s office, see if any of the local victims would be the key.

Delilah swiped through her pictures of the crime scene files.  She was staring at one of the victims absently, when a new thought struck her.  Dean had made a connection with their ages, assuming the spirit might have been in the same age bracket as the victims, but as she looked at them more closely, she noticed something else about the victims.

“Dean,” she said, turning the tablet towards him, “Would you say this kid was hot?”

Dean raised his eyebrows and glanced at her, “I dunno, he’s not really my type.”

Delilah gave him an exasperated look. “Not what I meant.  I’ve been looking at the victims’ pictures and they all fit a type, hot, young jocks.”

“Not sure if this is grave robbing or cradle robbing.”

She ignored his comment. “I think I’m on to something.  The mom told us her son was on the football team at Southwestern, full scholarship right? And the girl told us her brother was an athlete too, high school track I think.  What if all the victims were jocks?”

“Gimme the thing.” Dean took the tablet from her and swiped and tapped for a bit, mumbling discontentedly.  “Shit, guess where they all went to high school.”

Delilah looked out the window to her left where Cimarron High School sat in the middle of a cold January field, the sun already getting low and casting long shadows as the short winter day neared its end.  She took the tablet back and ran a quick search for the school name and tragedies.  It didn’t take long to find the obituary.  Delilah scooted down the seat and got close to Dean so they could look at it together.  The obituary was made in the style of a classic western wanted poster.  All signs point to yes.  They found the information for the kid’s home and pointed the black hood in that direction.

 ~

Another cup of coffee later, they were sitting in another living room talking to another grieving mother.  This time though, the tale of woe chilled Delilah to her core.  Nicholas Whelan had been a quiet, reserved kid who was more than happy living in his own head.  His favourite thing in the world?  Cowboys and westerns.  Sadly, even with the local history, his obsession put him apart from his classmates and he was teased relentlessly.  No matter what she did, his mother just couldn’t help him.  As he got older, the teasing turned to more aggressive acts of bullying: locker stunts and stolen possessions and hazing-like assaults.  He became even more recluse, and often spent days outside playing out his scenarios in his head and writing down his stories.  He had notebooks full of them. Stories of showdowns between good and evil gunslingers and attacking Indians and frontier life.  A few years before, his senior year, just before school started again after Christmas break, he took his own life.  When he didn’t come home for dinner that day, she had called the police.  They had found him hanging in the bell tower, in his favourite cowboy outfit.

Delilah and Dean left the house long after the sun had set and sat in the Impala.

“Is it possible that he’s our spirit?” she asked, not wanting to think that poor kid’s torment was continuing beyond his own death.

“Vengeful spirits are made from violent deaths.  It fits,” he said, turning the key in the ignition.

“Where are we going now?” Delilah asked, knowing the answer.

“We’re gonna finish this.  Put his spirit down.”

“I was really hoping I wouldn’t be digging up some poor kid’s grave tonight,” she said morosely.

“Well, suck it up McAllister.  That’s the job.  _It’s a pretty day for makin’ things right_.”

Delilah recognized the reference, but let it slide, not in the mood for ribbing him.

 ~

They parked the impala on the dark, quiet street along the side of the Cimarron Cemetery fence.  Delilah, not putting up a second more with the skirt and panty hose now that they weren’t necessary, had changed back into her jeans and t-shirt in the back seat while Dean drove them there.  She had also undone the horrible bun that had been pulling at her hair all day.  She opened the trunk and took out the gear they needed while Dean changed back into his own jeans and plaid, cursing the cold as he shrugged his green bomber jacket back on and joined her at the fence.  They pushed a couple of shovels through the bars, along with Dean’s duffel holding the salt, lighter fluid and the usual variety of weapons.  Dean gave her a leg up and she crawled over the top of the fence and dropped down on the other side, Dean following close behind, having pulled himself up.

Delilah pulled up the cemetery map on her tablet and quickly found the gravesite for Nicholas.  She had also looked up another one on the way in, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to go there, yet.  They found Nicholas’s grave, shining their flashlights on his etched name and Dean dropped the duffel by the headstone.  Delilah planted the shovel in the ground, not wasting any time, and lifted her first load of dirt and grass.  The ground was hard, but thankfully not frozen too deeply.  She was on her fifth shovelful, and starting to make a dent in the soil when she realized Dean wasn’t shovelling.  She looked up at him, leaned on her shovel handle and gave him a questioning look. “You gonna help me or am I doing this alone?”

“ _You see,_ ” Delilah’s shoulders slumped as she settled in for more of his foolishness, “ _in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns_.” He pulled his gun out of the back of his pants. “ _And those who dig. You dig_.”

“Dean, I’ve had a shitty ass day.  Can we just get on with it?”

He chuckled and put his gun away, “Yeah ok.  You just have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to say that… I’ve dug way too many of these.”

Dean’s shovel sank into the ground and she watched him working for a bit, “So why didn’t you?” she asked, also going back to shovelling.

“Didn’t what?”

“Use that line before.  I’m sure it’s not the only time you’ve been armed and digging a grave with someone.”

“Yeah, but Sam is usually armed too.”

She actually found herself laughing a bit, only with the Winchesters would any of this make sense.  Then again, she _was_ ankle deep in a grave, in the dead of night.  This was her life too, now.  They kept digging in silence.  By the time they hit coffin, the top of the hole was above her head and they were both dirt streaked and sweaty, even in the cold air.

“You ready?” Dean asked her.

“This isn’t my first salt and burn, Dean, can we just get it over with?”

He jammed his shovel between the nailed down lid and the coffin and pried it open.  Delilah startled when the lid lifted away to reveal the corpse of Nicholas Whelan.

“Is it normal that he still looks fresh?  He died, like, three years ago.”

“Yeah, it happens.  Embalming does that when it’s done right.”

Delilah let out a sound of surprise as she looked down at the open casket.  Dean turned to look at her alarmed. “What?”

“Sorry, I just didn’t expect him to be the white cowboy.”

She pointed down and Dean looked as well.  She felt sad again for the tormented kid who was even now still struggling with good and evil and who shot himself dead in a duel every day.  Talk about battling your demons.  Dean tapped her shoulder and cupped his hands together, crouching down to give her a leg up out of the grave.  He threw the shovels up after her and then jumped up leaning his arms on the cold ground and twisting to sit on the side before pushing himself to his feet, wiping the dirt off his hands.  Delilah leaned against the gravestone while he took the salt and poured it into the open coffin, then squirted lighter fluid.  By the time he lit the match and set the grave ablaze, Delilah had made up her mind and walked away.

She turned her flashlight on as she got further away from the fire so she could see her way along the graves.  She found the one she had been looking for and let the beam light up the frosted grass at her feet.   She thought that she would have felt sad seeing her mother’s grave after all these years, but it was just a headstone.  This wasn’t where any of her memories of her mother were tied.  It was just a cold slab of granite.

She heard the grass crunch before she saw him walking towards her.  He didn’t say anything as he shone his flashlight on the gravestone.  She watched his face, but he seemed unsurprised at the name he found there.  His voice was soft in the dark night, “We have to go, Lilah.  Don’t want to get caught here.”

He guided her back towards the spot along the fence where he had parked Baby and they left the way they came in.  As they drove north along the road, something suddenly clicked in Delilah’s brain and glimmers of recognition flashed in her head as she watched the dark city road.  They reached a T-intersection and Delilah knew which way to go.

“Go right.”

“But the way home is left.”

“I know, I just… Go right, please, Dean.”

He waited longer than necessary at the stop, but eventually turned right, driving down the narrow country road between two barren fields.  She told him to turn left onto an even narrower road, and he did, not saying a word.  They drove on, Delilah’s heart beating faster as the headlights lit up the darkness ahead of them.

“Stop here.”

“Delilah, what are we doing?  It’s the middle of a field.”

She didn’t respond.  As soon as the car was stopped she pushed the door open and stepped out, brimming with anticipation.  She closed the door and leaned back against the car, a sense of contentedness overwhelming her as she looked up at the billions of stars shining in the Kansas sky.  It was so beautiful, and just like she remembered it when she was a little girl, sitting on a picnic blanket with her parents.

Delilah heard the driver’s door creak open and felt the car shift as Dean got out and swung the door shut again.  She continued to look at the bright, innumerable stars in the sky above as the crunch of footsteps approached her side of the Impala.  He stopped just outside her field of vision and she felt him lean against Baby as well.  Delilah took a deep breath of the cold air.

“It’s so beautiful out here.  So peaceful.”

“Yeah,” his rough voice agreed with her.  After a pause he added, “So… back there.  That was your mother’s grave?”

Delilah nodded, still staring up at the sky. “We used to come out here and stargaze for hours.  She died when I was twelve.”

“I’m sorry, Lilah.” His voice was full of concern but she still didn’t look at him.  She was making up her mind about what to do.  “So, you grew up around here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, a small smile on her face. “My parents owned a store in town.  It was my grandfather’s before he passed and gave it to my mom.  Life here was pretty normal.  Just me, mom and dad.  I actually used to go to Dodge with mom a lot.  I loved it there.  I used to pretend I was Calamity Jane.”

Dean chuckled, maybe imagining a tiny version of her firing imaginary guns at imaginary adversaries.  Her heart started beating faster as apprehension flooded her system with doubts.  She wanted to tell him… everything, like she had told Sam after Dean had left.  She wanted him to know her.  And she wanted him to know, that even with everything that had happened, she still trusted him and wanted him.  But, where to begin?  She was so scared.

She took another deep, steadying breath. “Mom died in a car accident.  I was in the car with her.  It took the emergency people half an hour to get me out of there.  They told me later on that she had died on impact and didn’t suffer.  I was with her for half an hour, waiting in the wreck.”  She heard Dean swear under his breath, but she kept going, “After that, I moved to Kansas City with my father.  We left everything behind.  This is the first time I came back actually.”  She paused, watching the twinkling sea of stars, shining from so far away.

“How come you didn’t visit?  Didn’t you have friends, family here?”

“My dad changed after mom died.  He started drinking, gambling.  We were broke within a year and stuck moving from rat hole to rat hole.” She took a breath, looking for the courage to tell him the next bit. “One of the bookies had a taste for young girls.  He used to let my dad settle his debts… with me.  We lived like that for years and I kept dreaming of a time when I could leave.”

Dean was completely silent and unmoving.  She turned her head in the dark to look at him, his face gently outlined by starlight.  His jaw was twitching, like when he was grinding his teeth.  Delilah looked down at her feet.  “I told you once that humans could be monsters too.”

They stood there silently, their breath going up around them in little clouds.  Now that she had told him her big bad secret, she felt better, even if he wasn’t saying anything.  She didn’t want his approval; she had just wanted him to know.  She felt like a little of the weight that smothered her every day had lifted off her chest and she took another deep breath.

“Anyways,” she added, “I left Kansas City when I was eighteen, and I hadn’t really thought about any of this until Malachi and his stupid angels made me relive it as part of their torture, hence the complete mess I was in, you know, when I came back.”

“ _That_ ’s what you consider an ‘anyways’?  Jesus, Lilah.”

Delilah laughed softly, she could see his point, a couple months ago, all this stuff was keeping her up at night, tormenting her waking hours even…  She realized now though, that somehow, at some point, she had managed to move on and now she was able to think about it almost detachedly.  Something dawned on her, as she stood surrounded by both her childhood memories and elements of her new life.

“It all comes down to not letting fear make decisions for you.  I had to decide between letting fear turn me into a shell of a person who spends her time too scared to leave the safety of her bunker.” She smiled. “Or meet my fear head on and live my life doing those things that fill me with purpose.  Something greater than myself.” She turned to face Dean, he looked her way too.  “You told Garth that if he had found something that made him truly happy, that he should hold on to it, no matter what.”  Dean nodded.  “Well, goddamnit, that’s what I’m doing too.  And you’re a part of that, and your brother.  You’re the family I lost when my world was turned upside down.”

She looked back up at the stars, and she was filled with such a strong feeling of happiness, she couldn’t stop the smile from spreading on her face.  She felt like she was going to burst with it.  Standing there, in a field she had stood in with her mom all those years ago, she could almost feel her mother there beside her, smiling at her proudly.  She basked in the feeling a little longer and then straightened away from the car, opened the door and sat down.  To Dean she said, “Let’s go home.” He moved around the car and dropped into the driver’s seat, shifting out of park, and drove, bunker bound.

 ~

They arrived in the middle of the night.  Dean not bothering to park Baby in the garage, they came in with their bags through the main door and onto the mezzanine.  She could see that Sam was still up, the lights in the library on full.  Time to make things right with him, she thought.  She put her bag down on the world map table, while Dean walked off down the kitchen hallway towards his room.  She walked up the steps into the library shrugging out of her warm coat as she approached Sam, sitting hunched over three open books, his computer and a pad of paper at the middle table.  She draped her coat on the back of the chair next to him and pulled it out to sit down, her feet pulled up on the seat while she sat back against the armrest.  Sam kept his head down.

“Hey,” she said, leaning forward and nudging him in the shoulder with her fist.

He put down his pen, looking ahead of him and didn’t say anything, so she nudged him again.  He looked at her reluctantly, his hair falling in his face, hiding half of it. “Hey,” he said, finally.

“Sorry I ran off without saying anything.”

He sighed, “I’m not your keeper, Delilah, you don’t have to tell me every time you leave the bunker.”

“I know,” she said sadly, “But I still should’ve.  I’m surprised you even noticed we were gone.”

He huffed and smiled. “Yeah, it took me a while.  I figured at first you were just hiding out, but it was too quiet… ya know?”

“Boy, do I ever!” Delilah sighed, thinking of all the time spent alone there while they were out hunting.

“Yeah, and then I saw that the Impala was gone, but the Dart was still here, so I put two and two together.”

“Dean was helping me out with a hunt,” she said softly, playing with a frayed edge of her jeans.

“How did that work out?” he asked her, finally turning towards her and leaning back in his chair.

“I wanted to kill him at first.” They both laughed at that. “He sure knows how to be an insufferable ass sometimes.  But then we got to hunting, and we solved the case, which is great and… I told him.”

Sam looked at her pensively, frowning slightly. “Told him what?”

“Told him about me.  Mom, Dad, the angels.”

“What brought that on?” Sam asked, looking genuinely curious.

“I grew up just outside of Dodge, in Cimarron.  It’s where I lived with my parents before my mom died.  The hunt took us there.”

He raised his eyebrows surprised. “Are you ok?”

She gave him a wide smile. “I feel really good, Sam.  This hunt.  It brought back so much more than what that twisted Adriel used to hurt me.  It reminded me of the good parts of my childhood and it connected me to my mom in a way I haven’t felt since she died.”

“Sounds cathartic.”

“It was.  I realized some of the things that are important to me.”

“Such as?”

“Such as, I don’t want to be afraid of living my life.  And I want us to be ok.”  She put her feet down on the ground and leaned forward over the arm rest, grabbing his hand in hers. “I’ve missed you these last few weeks.  It was a stupid argument, and I’m sorry.”

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek.  Sam laughed, looking a little embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his neck.  “I’m sorry too,” he said.

Delilah smiled, feeling better now that they had sorted out that issue.  “I’m going to bed.  Try to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, Mom.”

She stood up and ruffled his long hair, Sam hunkered down and away from her attack, covering his head.  Smiling, she grabbed her coat and walked out of the library, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she headed for her room.

 ~

In the next few days, things seemed to return to normal.  They would eat, all three of them, companionably enough, and they would work together in the library, discussing their various findings and occasionally brainstorming. Her fratricidal dreams seemed to have settled down, not making her wake up in cold sweats anymore, although she did wake up once, uncomfortably aroused and ended up having to take care of it herself; green eyes and plump lips featuring prominently in her fantasy.

As amicable as the atmosphere had gotten in the bunker, since their return from Cimarron, and as happy as she had been that she had finally opened up to Dean, her level of frustration was reaching new heights, as they no longer ignored each other and in fact, interacted more and more often.  She figured that if she just kept ignoring it, the discomfort would go away, but some days it was almost too much to take.

She headed out to the library and settled into a chair at the centre table, pulling towards her one of the books Sam had been looking at the day before.  He joined her not long after and he went over with her the things he had been studying.  He had taken to bouncing ideas off her as her knowledge of the Men of Letters’ library grew.

“Hey, have you come across anything in the books about locating or tracking angels?” Sam asked her, as he scanned the spines of some of the books on the shelf behind her.

Delilah stretched like a cat, putting her tablet down on the table in front of her and standing up from her cramped position on the library chair.  Somehow she always managed to get herself all tangled up in knots when she focused for too long on any particular thing, and now her foot was asleep.

“Yeah sort of, ow.” She stumbled as she took a step towards him, shaking the pins and needles out. “In that book of sigils, there was something that gave me an idea.”  She grimaced as the blood started rushing back into her foot painfully.

“You ok there?” Sam asked, looking more amused than concerned.

“Yeah, yeah.  Foot’s asleep.”  She reached the shelves beside Sam and pulled the thin notebook from its spot on the second shelf.  “This book had a sigil in it called the Siren’s Call.  It’s supposed to call angels to its location somehow.  I was looking at it the other day and wondering if there might be a way to call a particular angel.”

Sam frowned, looking intrigued as Delilah found the right page and handed him the book.  “How would that work?” he asked her.

“Well, I was thinking that sigils are basically angel script imbued with certain spells, which is why what you paint the sigil with is important.  It’s also why a lot of these are activated using blood, like the banishing sigil.”

“Yeah, and?”

“If we can integrate a particular angel’s name to the sigil itself, maybe it could focus that siren call to that one particular angel.”

“Huh,” Sam said, turning around and looking through the book, putting it down on the table, “We should ask Cas next time he’s around.  See what he thinks.  He knows more about these sigils and how they work than we do.”

“What are we asking Cas?” Dean asked, walking up to the table.  He must’ve just come in, Delilah thought, watching him a little dreamily, as Sam relayed to his brother what she had just told him.  He was wearing his burgundy shirt today and Delilah found herself completely distracted; she saw it in her head, a flash of that same shirt crumpled on the floor of the Impala, the sweat slowly cooling off their naked bodies.

“Lilah?”  She snapped out of it, only to find Dean’s intensely green eyes looking right at her.  She could feel herself blush as she tried to get a grip.  “Do you know what it might look like with the angel’s name?”

Delilah walked up to the two brothers leaning over the library table.  Dean straightened up, and took a step back when she reached for the book and turned it back to the Siren Call sigil, sitting down in her chair.

“Well, preferably I would need to know the name of the angel we’re looking for.  It has to be in Enochian for it to work I think, but this is what I think it might look like.”

She looked around the table for a pen and paper and spotted them just past where Dean was standing.  She reached over and grabbed them, accidentally brushing his arm with hers as she did.  She pulled away quickly, the hair on her arm standing on end as she tried to focus on something other than how soft and warm his skin felt.  God she was losing her mind.

She put the paper down and started redrawing the sigil, keeping the basic lines the same, but changing some of the symbols scattered around the edges.  With the Enochian alphabet, she had figured out that it was these symbols that spread the signal to all angels and that if she replaced them with the name of a particular angel, it might refocus the pull.  As she drew, Sam leaned down to look at her work, asking her about why she had moved this symbol or erased that one.  She explained as best she could about Enochian and what she had learned on her own, which was far from complete, drawing, like she did, from her classes about other ancient languages.  She turned her head to the side to see if Dean was following too, and was alarmed to find him standing right beside her, his right arm holding onto the back of her chair and his left leaning on the table, trapping her.  His head was practically level with hers, and she found herself looking right at his mouth.

She turned away again, her heart giving a little thump, demanding to not be ignored.  She ignored it anyways and went back to her drawing of the sigil.

“I think you might be on to something here,” said Dean as he straightened up again. “I’m gonna take a picture of this and send it to Cas, see what he thinks.  God knows we could wait forever for him to show his face.”

“Great!” Delilah said, straightening out of her chair and pushing past Sam, heading for the back door.  “Let me know what he thinks.”  The brothers looked at her confused, Dean asking her where she was going.  “Just need to use the washroom.  I might hit the gym too.  Work the kinks out.”

She pushed the door open and walked away, down the hall to her room.  Away from him, her nervous system turned off the high alert and she breathed normally again, feeling stupid like she always did these days.  But what could she do that she hadn’t already done?  Better to go work out her issues on the treadmill and the bag.

 ~

She came back from the gym, feeling much better.  She parked the Blue Devil in her usual spot in the garage and made her way down the cement steps with her gym bag in her hand.  The lights were dim.  She glanced at her phone and realized for the first time how late it was.  God bless 24 hour gyms.  She had already showered there, enjoying the hot water without the nagging thought that at any minute one of the Winchesters could walk in.  She headed for her room, just noticing the light shining through the grill at the bottom of door 11.  She closed her door and prepared for bed turning off all the lights except for the one at her bedside.  She stripped out of her clothes except her panties and threw the rest into the laundry hamper she had stashed in the corner behind her dresser.  She grabbed the t-shirt she usually slept in from her bed and put it on.  She pulled her tablet from her bag and plugged it, along with her phone, putting them down under the lamp to charge.  She looked through her books on the shelf above the bed and chose one of her favourites.  She settled under the covers, stacking her pillows against the headboard so she could sit comfortably.

A soft knock at the door pulled her away from the gardens of New Orleans and she looked up as the handle turned and the door was pushed open slowly.  She was confused as Dean stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.  She glanced at him just enough to register his stockinged feet, jeans and black t-shirt, the mark on his arm exposed, before settling on his face; he was looking a little unsure, like a child who’s worried he might be in trouble.

“Dean?  What’s wrong?”

He walked over to the side of her bed and sat down, making the mattress dip.  He clasped his hands in his lap and stared around the room absently.  His shoulders were slumped and he cleared his throat like he was going to say something, but then didn’t.

“Whatever it is, just say it.  It can’t be as bad as you think.”

His voice was low and rough and she barely heard him. “I’m scared, Lilah.” She was sure her ears were playing tricks on her.  She stayed very quiet though, patiently waiting for him to go on, not wanting to push him harder than he could take.  He looked up at the ceiling.  “Sam was right.  I’m scared of being alone.  Of losing the people I care about.”

Delilah didn’t dare move, in case she startled him.  She sat there in her bed, staring at him, completely lost for words as he turned his eyes on her.

“I’m not the right guy for you.  All I do is attract trouble and people keep getting caught in the crosshairs.”

Delilah’s heartbeat accelerated, she could not keep quiet about her feelings any longer. “Right guy or no, you’re the only one I want.  I mean, I see you and the air gets sucked right out of me.  I feel it, like a string tugging at my gut.”  Her brain was struggling, trying to explain to him the effect he had on her.  “It terrifies me.  I've never felt this… before.”

His eyes were vulnerable, his voice sounding so unsure.  “I don’t know if I can be the man you want me to be.”

“I want _you_.  Not some dream world perfect version of you, YOU, flaws and all.”

“It’s a mess in here, Lilah,” he said.

Delilah laughed nervously, the air so charged and heavy, making it hard to think.  “I’m a mess too, Dean.  Life does that.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you.  I don’t want to lose you.”

Delilah’s heart was aching to hold him and she couldn’t take another second away.  She rocked forward, kneeling beside him on the bed and sitting back on her heels.  She put her hands on either side of his face, feeling the soft texture of his not quite beard on her tingling palms.

“No one knows what’s going to happen.  But right now?  That’s entirely up to us, and I don’t want to waste another moment being apart.”

Dean’s mouth came crashing against hers.  She kneeled up, forcing his head to tilt back as she moved closer to his body, caressing his jaw and neck, her hands settling on his nape as he kissed her over and over. He wrapped his arms around her and twisted away, pulling her across his lap and laying her down at the foot of the bed, her legs on his.  She kissed him ravenously, running her hands along his broad shoulders and down his chest, remembering the shape of him under her fingertips as his hand slowly trailed down her side and settled on her thigh. She couldn’t help the sigh of contentment that escaped her as for once her tingling body and wildly beating heart were completely justified: all systems were go!

She grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and pulled up, tossing it aside, revealing his naked torso.  She pushed against his chest, making him roll to the side.  She swung her legs and rolled after him, quickly straddling his waist.  His hands squeezed her thighs as she grabbed the edge of her own t-shirt, pulled it off over her head and tossed it to the side, her hair falling all around her.

“Oh God, yes,” he said quietly, as he reached up and took her breasts in his hands, sitting up to kiss her again.

She could not get enough of his lips.  How many dreams, both asleep and awake, had been haunted by the memory of those lips doing just this.  She captured his full lower lip between her teeth and wrapped her arms around his head, holding him close as she kissed him more and more desperately.  His hands splayed across her back and she kneaded his shoulders, running her hands back up in his hair, her body pressing against him, their bare skin so warm.  She rocked against him and felt him through his jeans pushing against her.  She reached down between them and unbuckled his belt, then quickly untied his pants, pulling the zipper open so she could slip her hand inside and through the slit in his boxers to grab hold of his cock.  She kissed him again, as she ran her hand slowly along his length, pulling a soft moan from his lips.  He held her close against his chest and lay her down on the bed.  Both were breathing heavily, passion ruling them entirely.  They stretched out alongside each other.  She watched him in the lamplight as he rested on one elbow and brushed her long hair out of the way before lowering his mouth to her breast.  She let her head fall back when she felt the tug between her legs as he suckled one nipple and brushed the other with his thumb.

His hand slowly trailed down her body, making her abs twitch as he continued on and down between her legs, his fingers slipping beneath the elastic of her panties.  As his fingers made their way past her lips, he let out a growl and pulled away from her breast to look at her face.

“You’re so wet, sweetheart,” he whispered, hoarsely, his fingers just there at her entrance, making the blood pump.

“I want you so bad, Dean,” she told him, her need making her breathless.  She pulled him down for another kiss as his fingers dipped inside of her, stroking her into a blaze.  By the time he pulled out again, she was gasping against his shoulder.  He lay back and lifted his ass, pushing down his pants and boxers and kicking them off, along with his socks.  Anticipation mounting, Delilah reached into the drawer beside the bed and pulled out a condom.

Dean flashed her a smile. “Always prepared, babe.” She smiled back at him as he pulled down her panties and discarded them.  He came to kneel between her legs and she tore the wrapper off the condom and sat up, rolling the thin latex down over him.  She reached for him, putting her arms behind his neck and made to pull him down on top of her but he had a different idea.  Wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her up into his lap and lined them up; Delilah could feel him pressing against her.  She kissed him again as she slowly let herself sink down to her knees, his cock pushing up inside her and stretching her.  She held him against her tightly, breathing heavily, neither of them moving as her body and mind sang from joy at being with him again.

Then he tipped her backwards, covering her as he pulled back and thrust inside.  Delilah gasped as he grunted into her neck and then did it again.  He slammed into her, over and over, his speed increasing and she thrust her hips up to meet him.  Pleasure mounted quickly and she tried to stifle some of the moans fighting to come out.  How much time passed, their bodies pressing together, sweat making them glisten in the light from the lamp?  Delilah was lost, completely immersed in the feel of him: warm under her wandering hands, his weight pressing down on her, his cock pushing deep inside.  When she finally climaxed, her body arching against him, she felt so good, she didn’t want to be apart from him again, she felt like she had lost a piece of herself, and had found it again in him.  He was her shelter from the storm, her home.

When she came down, it was to find Dean laying on his side, one leg draped over one of hers, his head resting on her shoulder and his arm laying across her abdomen.  He was fast asleep.  She stroked his hair gently, running her other hand along his arm, up his shoulder and down his broad back, mapping out every inch of him she could reach with her hands.  Her feeling of happy contentment was only slightly dampened by the feel of the raised scar tissue on his forearm: the Mark of Cain.  She wondered once again what unforeseeable consequences were lying in wait for him and worry gnawed half-heartedly at her stomach.  Dean was in her arms again, whatever life was preparing for him, she would be there to help in any way she could.

She reached over to the lamp, careful not to wake him, and clicked it off.  She kissed his forehead and fell asleep, soaking all of him in.

⭐

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More western quotes!
> 
> Hang 'Em High (1968)  
> Open Range (2003)  
> The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed. I know I'm super delighted that Dean and Delilah finally seem to have sorted out their shit. Make up sex is always good :-)


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